September 4, 2004

 

                                                                  ON BEING B

                         ISOMORPHISMS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TRADITION

 

                                                                    Summary of

          Smith, Huston, Forgotten Truth B The Common Vision of the World=s Religions

                                                   (HarperSan Francisco), 1976/1992

 

A.   REALITY AS A SPATIAL HIERARCHY

Science

Quantitative: The scientific (modern, secular) view is quantitative B restricted to the physical only, with its dimensions of space, time and matter/energy.  Science measures these dimensions by means of numbers (pp. 6, 37 and 98). 

 

The physical has three levels:

1.                  The Macro-World: The known universe is a four-dimensional pseudo-sphere 26 billion light-years Aacross@ (pp. 2 and 102).

 

2.                  The Meso-World: This is man=s world, measured in inches, feet and miles (p. 1).

 

3.                  The Micro-World: This is the world within the man=s world.  Cells measure on the order of 1000th of an inch; atoms, 100,000,000th of an inch; atomic nuclei, 1,000,000,000,000th of an inch, and so on exponentially downward (p. 1).         

 

Tradition

Qualitative: The traditional (religious, sacred, humanistic) view is qualitative and ontological (pp. 4 and 98). 

 

The view sees the universe as a AGreat Chain of Being@:

A[The universe is conceived] as a >Great Chain of Being,= composed of an immense,... infinite number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents... through >every possible= grade up to the ens perfectissimum....  In one form or another, [this conception] has been the dominant official philosophy of the larger part of civilized mankind through most of its history (Lovejoy, pp. 26 and 59; cited pp. 4-5).  

 

In this conception, the universe has three levels:

1.                  Higher Planes (Heavens): ABeing, Awareness and Bliss@; or, more popularly, Ameaningful, significant and important@; and still more popularly, Ahappy@ B all deriving from being (pp. 3-4).

 

2.                  Earth. On this level, the measurement is quality or alternatively, Avirtue.@

 

3.                  Lower Planes (Hells): Unhappiness, poor (meaning distant from God). 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B.   ISOMORPHISM BETWEEN MAN AND THE COSMOS

Science

Our Personal Center is also the Center of the Cosmos: Because space is relative and curved, the center of the physical universe is for each observer the point from which his observations proceed.  The point at the center of each person is also the point at the center of the cosmos (pp. 29-30).

 

Tradition

Our Soul is also the Center of the Cosmos: The soul originates in parallel to the physical universe and the center of the cosmos is likewise the center of each soul.

 

Being, at its summit, transmits a portion of its store to the subordinate planes, which by dint of this transfusion Amaterialize,@ each successively lower plane receiving a smaller allotment because every grade of finitude must be actualized.  In the act of flooding the human plane, being dons the categories we know B space, time, and matter. 

 

The human plane, woven of space and time, derives from a trans-worldly source where there is neither space nor time (pp. 28-30).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C.   PLANES OF EXISTENCE

Science

A Tiered World: The level of man and the levels above him include the earth, the atmosphere, space and super-space.

 

Tradition

A Tiered Reality: The level of man and the levels above him include:

2.                  The Terrestrial: This is the gross, the material, the sensible, the corporeal, the phenomenal, or the human plane.  Its distinctive categories are space, time and energy/matter, with number the mode of measurement to which they lend themselves (p. 37).

 

3.                  The Intermediate: This is the plane of the subtle, animic, psychic, universal or total mind.  It is an integrated, ordered, conscious whole which contains phantasms with no sensible counterparts.  The world mind is the supreme expression of the divine in the manifest world (pp. 38 and 48). 

 

The phantasms of the intermediate level are of two types:

a.                   Animate: Ghosts, departed souls, our own subtle bodies disengaged from their gross, exterior envelopes, as in sleep (p. 39).

 

b.                  Inanimate: Archetypes, psychokinesis, magic.  In addition to creating the terrestrial world, the archetypes order it in ways that partially exceed its linear laws of causation (pp. 39-41 and 48).

 

3.                  The Celestial: The celestial plane contains the nature of God over and above that which manifests itself in the intermediate plane.  The celestial plane contains Auniversals,@ such as Abeauty,@ by itself, not as a property of concrete things that are beautiful.  It is the realm of the personal God.  God is both anthropomorphic and not B mystics often using the term AGodhead@ for his trans-personal mode (pp. 50-51 and 53).

 

4.                  The Infinite: This is God in his ultimate nature B the Infinite.  Only negative terms characterize it literally B infinite, unconditioned, ineffable, immutable.  Positive terms apply only analogically (pp. 54-55).   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D.   LEVELS OF SELFHOOD

Science

A Tiered Self:

1.                  Body: The body is the surface aspect of man.  Its building blocks, the cells, are each equipped with hundreds or thousands of allosteric enzyme molecules a million billion times finer than the most delicate cybernetic relays man can devise.  The brain has 10 billion neurons, any one of which can be related to as many as 25,000 others, for a number of possible associations that exceeds the number of atoms in the universe (p. 63).

 

2.                  Mind: Mind is a stream of consciousness (p. 74).

 

Intimations that the mind, though implicated with brain, is not reducible to it are of three kinds:                                                              

a.                   Neurophysiology:

i.                    Decision: No spot in the brain, if electrically stimulated, induces patients to believe or decide:

                                               AMind must be viewed as a basic element in itself... with a form of energy different from that of neuronal potentials that travel the axon pathways@ (Penfield, pp. 48 and 79-81; cited pp. 64-65).

 

ii.                  The Right Hemisphere: The right hemisphere of the brain contains trans-verbal capacities that are incommensurate with language yet indispensable to life.  These capacities are indispensable for trafficking with supra-terrestrial planes, which differ in kind from the plane which language was primarily designed to cope with and mirror.  Without empowerment by the psychic order, man cannot live B subjects allowed to sleep but not to dream, go mad (p. 66).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

b.                  Mind is a Different Kind of Entity: There is no convincing materialistic explanation of mind (p. 67).

 

Conscious experience, such as perception, is refractory to measurement:

AThe far-reaching notion >energy= [derived from the concept of space], is... powerless to deal with or describe the mind....  Mind... goes... in our spatial world more ghostly that a ghost.  Invisible, intangible, it is a thing not even in outline; it is not a >thing=....  The search in [the energy-scheme] for a scale of equivalence between energy and mental experience arrives at none@ (Sherrington pp. 251 and 260; cited p. 68).

 

No common substratum which answers to physical categories, links sentience to insentience.  The link is on a higher level of reality and (depending on the level) is form, existence, being or the infinite (p. 68).                       

 

c.                   Mind functions outside the Laws for Physical Matter: Mind conforms to laws that differ in kind from those that matter exemplifies B as demonstrated by telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis and the like (p. 69).

 

The Mind has two Forms: The two forms of mind are waking and dreaming:

a.                   Awake: In its waking state, the mind reaches the physical world, yet consists of nothing but a tissue of images conditioned by what our senses can pick up, our interests induce them to pick up, and our past experience feeds in by ways of interpretations that elicit expectations.  Everything that constitutes the world for us is a flow of phantasms.  With memory, imagination and abstract thought, the mysteries compound (pp. 69-70).

 

b.                  Sleeping: In its sleeping state, the mind changes its register.  In deep or dreamless sleep, its content is out of sight, presumably because it is too undifferentiated to be recalled.  The content of dreams, on the other hand, can be remembered, but with much evaporation or decantation, as we pass into wakefulness and the dream=s other-worldliness eases into linguistic molds (pp. 70-71).

 

 

Tradition

A Tiered Self:

1.                  Body: The surface aspect of man.

 

2.                  Mind: Mind is a stratum of self that is neither reducible to the brain nor finally dependent on it.  It is a stream of consciousness (pp. 69 and 74). 

 

3.                  Soul: Soul is the element in man that relates to God (p. 87). 

 

The soul is the source of our consciousness, selfhood and tropism:

a.                   Consciousness: The soul is the source of the mind=s stream of consciousness.  It is also its witness while never itself appearing within the stream as a datum to be observed (p. 74). 

 

b.                  Selfhood: The soul underlies all the changes through which an individual passes, thereby providing the sense in which these changes can be considered to be his (p. 74).

 

c.                   Tropism: The soul has dynamism.  It appears less as a thing than a movement B a movement with direction.  The entire history of the race B political, moral, legal, socio-cultural, intellectual, economic and religious, from earliest times to the present day B is the record of man=s search for some beckoning object.  The soul is programed to:

i.                    Perpetuate its existence.

ii.                  Augment its existence. 

 

The tropism of the soul is toward being and the increase of being.  Because the soul is finite, it appears to it as if its fulfillment were to be found in finite things B wealth, fame, power, a loved one, etc.... (pp. 75-76 and 78). 

 

4.                  Spirit:

a.                   Identical with God: Spirit is the element in man that is identical with God B not with his personal mode but with God=s mode that is infinite.  On this final stratum, the subject-object dichotomy is transcended.  Spirit is Infinite, but man is finite because he is not Spirit only.  His specifically human overlay B body, mind and soul B veils the Spirit within him.  Spirit provides man with a vantage point from which he can see that his station requires the  limitations his humanity imposes.  Spirit is the bedrock of our life stream (pp. 87-88).

 

 

 

 

 

 

b.                  The Ground of Being: Every figure presupposes a ground against which it is seen or thought.  Since the individual could not exist without its ground, or be conceived without pre-supposing it, the two are, in last analysis, inseparable.  In a way that is absolutely crucial, the ground of a thing is an aspect of the thing itself (p. 90).

 

c.                   Our Destiny includes our Ground: For Spirit to permeate the self=s entirety, the components of the self must be aligned B body in temperance, mind in understanding and soul in love. 

 

To remove the dichotomy between the environment and Spirit, the Aother@ must be perceived as one=s destiny: 

AThere is no radical distinction... between what a man is given in the way of mind, emotional make-up and body, on the one hand, and the other, what he is given in the way of outward circumstances and environment.  Together they form a significant whole and all are aspects of a particular individual life.@

 

AWhat we are and where we are, cannot ultimately be divided.  To accept our destiny is to accept ourselves...@

 

AThe part of us... streaming in upon us in the form of >outside= events, through the course of time can be recognized as belonging to our own particular pattern B but only after the event has happened....  In general, acceptance of destiny is acceptance of what has happened, not of what might happen@ (Eaton, pp. 239-240; cited pp. 93-94). 

 

Acceptance of one=s destiny as part of one=s selfhood is an aspect of that love of being, or God, that opens us to the Infinite (pp. 92-94).                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E.   THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM

Science

Our Senses deceive us: Able to detect the meso-kingdom only, our senses deceive us.   Man=s unaided senses disclose only the nature of the physical universe.  Our eyes are blind to all but the limited band of light waves to which they are tuned (pp. 98-99 and 104).                                        

 

Tradition

Our Sensibilities mis-lead us: Man=s standard sensibilities do not discern the world=s import B the meaning of life, history or existence in general.  Hence his sensibilities mis-lead him.  The life that we see is a tissue of mis-readings.  Our hearts disregard events that lie outside their own self-interest (pp. 98-99).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F.   THE AOTHER-THAN-THE SEEMING@ IS A STUPENDOUS SUPERLATIVE

Science

What is beyond is Stupendous: Science is essentially the domain of the quantifiable B  and about the size of the world, the superlatives that it has brought to light are registered primarily in numbers (pp. 100-101).

1.                  On the Macro-Scale:

a.                   Quantitatively:

i.                    Invisibles exist: Ninety percent of the universe is at present invisible, unmeasurable by any instrument.  However, calculations require that it be posited to account for the gravitational pull on the rims of galaxies (p. viii). 

 

ii.                  The Universe is Infinite: It takes light from Andromeda, the closest sizeable galaxy, 2,200,000 light-years to reach us.  The galaxies in the universe number in the billions.  The entire universe we know B 13 billion years old, 26 billion light-years across, filled with billions of galaxies B is but one of who knows how many likely trajectories of universes across a gigantic platform of super-space whose dimensions are not three or four but infinite (pp. 2 and 101-102).

 

b.                  Qualitatively: Parallel lines converge.  The shortest distances between stars are curves.  Time shrinks and expands (pp. 38 and 105).

 

2.                  On the Micro-Scale:

a.                   Quantitatively:

Molecules: Avogadro=s number tells us that the molecules in half an ounce of water number 6.023 x 1023 B roughly 600,000 billion billion (p. 101).

Avogadro=s number: Number of particles contained in one mole of any substance.  It is equal to 6.023 x 1023.

 

Quarks: The quarks of micro-physics are 100 billion billion times smaller than the electron (p. 102). 

 

 

 

 

 

The Utterly Small: To enter even a single level of smallness beyond the one that is now being explored, would require that we build an accelerator roughly the size of our planet.  The total number of levels in nature is probably infinite (p. 102).

 

No Vacuum: AVacuums@ are not empty:

A[What we used to think of as a >vacuum=] is populated by things that are utterly small. [Since] the shorter the wavelength, the larger the energy compressed into it, we arrive at the conclusion that >in a thimbleful of vacuum, there is more... energy than would be released by all the atomic bomb fuel in the universe=@ (Schilling, p. 110; cited p. 102).

 

No Speed Greater than the Speed of Light: Particles fired in opposite directions, each at a speed approximating that of light, separate from each other no faster than the speed of light (p. 106).

 

b.         Qualitatively:

i.                    Light: Light is simultaneously wave and particle.  Wave packets give rise to particles, or particles derive from wave packets (pp. 38 and 58).

 

ii.                  Electrons: Electrons jump orbit without traversing the intervening distance.  Particles have only probable positions.  Particles pass through alternative apertures simultaneously without dividing (pp. 38, 58 and 105).

 

iii.                Photons: Photons are only Avirtually@ material B they have no rest mass, lose no energy to the media they traverse, and are not objectively (inter-subjectively) detectable because to perceive them is to annihilate them (pp. viii-ix). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iv.                Invisibles create Matter: Invisibles precede the visible and create or in some way give rise to it:

AAll matter is created out of some imperceptible substratum....  The creation of matter leaves a >hole= in this substratum which appears as antimatter.  [However], this substratum is [really] not accurately described as material, since it fills all space uniformly and is not detectable by any observation.  In a sense, it appears as nothingness B immaterial, undetectable and omnipresent.  But it is a peculiarly material form of nothingness, out of which all matter is created@ (p. viii; and Plzak, p. 54; cited pp. ix and 115-116).

 

Tradition

What is beyond is Stupendous: Bliss, the qualitative Amore-superlative-than-we-normally-suppose@ is also superlative.  The Taittiriya Upanishad describes the bliss of Brahman (the Self) as 1019.10 times that of the happiest worlding.  Others simply say that Brahman=s bliss is infinite (pp. 102-103). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G.   THE WORLD=S SUPERLATIVES CANNOT BE KNOWN IN ORDINARY WAYS

Science

Nature in its Further Reaches is Counterintuitive: In its further reaches, as expressed by the relativity theory and quantum mechanics,  nature is Acounterintuitive,@ meaning that it disregards and violates B transcends B the categories of space and time as we intuit them.  The registers of nature that flank our meso-kingdom differ from ours not only in degree but in kind (pp. 104-105).

 

Tradition

The Realms beyond that of Man are Ineffable: The philosophical equivalent of Acounterintuitive@ is Aineffable@ or Aapophatic.@  Remembering that electrons jump orbit without traversing the intervening distance, note that St. Thomas= angels simply willed themselves into different locations and found themselves there (pp. 105-106).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

H.   THE SUPERLATIVES CAN BE KNOWN IN WAYS THAT ARE EXCEPTIONAL

Science

The Further Reaches of Nature are Inexpressible: The further reaches of nature are inexpressible in ordinary language.  It is as though, unable to say green, we were forced to say that a leaf is both yellow and blue while being neither.  The language tailored to the exceptional referents of the further reaches of nature, is mathematics B through equations (pp. 109-110).

 

Tradition

The Trans-corporeal Reaches of Reality are Inexpressible: The realms beyond that of man are inexpressible in ordinary language.  The specialized way of knowing the highest trans-corporeal reaches of reality is the mystic vision (p. 110). 

 

Mystic visions have four messages in common:

5.                  The insight is ineffable.

6.                  The vision shows existence to be characterized by an entirely unexpected unity.

7.                  The discovery awakens joy.

8.                  The joy is the logical consequence of the discovery of the unity of being (pp. 110-111).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I.   THE DISTINCTIVE WAYS OF KNOWING MUST BE CULTIVATED

Science

Dedication: It takes years of study and dedication to understand physics (p. 112).

 

Tradition

Dedication: Everything is a gift, but nothing is free.

AThe wind of God=s grace is always blowing but you must raise your sail.@ (Vivekananda, no reference; cited pp. 113-114).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J.   PROFOUND KNOWING REQUIRES INSTRUMENTS

Science

Instruments: The telescope, the camera, the spectroscope.

 

Tradition

The Revealed Texts: Revealed texts (in non-literate societies, the ordering myths) tell of truths welling up from the deepest unconscious of spiritual paragons.  Spirit (the divine in man) and the Infinite (the divine in its trans-personal finality) are identical.  The truth told to us by prophets was Aheard@ in comparison to other truths which are Aremembered@ (pp. 114-115). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSIONS

Science cannot measure Quality: Values, purposes, life meanings and qualities lie outside the realm of science (pp. 14-16).

 

2.                  Science does not measure the Whole Universe: Science knows only what it can measure.  Nothing in science controverts the existence of realms other than the one with which it deals (p. 17).

 

3.                  Scientism is a Demon: In its place, science is a grace.  Out of place, when it presumes to control too much and disclose more of reality than in fact it does, science becomes scientism and turns demonic.  To approach existence as if it were purely or even primarily physical and mathematical, is to falsify it.  The approach could end in smashing our planet:

AIf a hammer is the only tool one learns to use, it is tempting to regard everything as if it were a nail@ (p. 117).

 

4.                  The Three-dimensional Cross: The three-dimensional cross (like the Apickup jacks@ with which children play) is the most adequate model of reality that space can provide. 

The Vertical Axis: The vertical axis (axis mundi) intersects all the planes of existence and ranks then in ontological hierarchy B the hierarchy of being and worth.

 

The Horizontal Axes: The horizontal arms are time and space.  Of the planes traversed by the vertical axis, the model shows but one B our own, the only one that we can see.  But if we possessed metaphysical eyes, we would see arms protruding from all the points the vertical axis registers and the arms would, in fact, be planes.  The horizontal space/time would be only a section of a cube B or rather, because a circle encloses more space for the length of its perimeter than does a square, a sphere.  It would be an infinite sphere toward which the arms of the cross would point.

 

Being: The supreme plane from which the vertical axis descends is the infinite B Being, exempt from every mode of limitation and restriction.  From this pinnacle, all lesser being derives (pp. 23-24 and 28).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.                  Truth does not need us: Truth does not need us and is in no way dependent upon our powers of conceptualization.  There are regions of being, for instance, the unimaginable perfection of totality, that are quite unrelated to the contours of the human mind.  The mind is comfortable with facts and fictions.  It is not made for grasping ultimates (p. 58).

 

5.                  Analytic Thought has Unseen Violence built into it: The Western hunt for knowledge, analytic and objective to its core, has violence built into it.  For to know analytically is to reduce the object of knowledge, however vital, however complex, to precisely this: an object.  This being so, the Western hunt for knowledge is, in a tragic sense, the final exploitation and the direct link to our current ecological anguish (pp. 125-126).

 

6.                  The Causes of Social Disease, lie deep: On their own plane, social problems are unsolvable (p. x).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                               MY THOUGHTS

 

AREAS FERTILE GROUND FOR SEEDS OF WAR

1.                  Analytic Thought: The left hemisphere of the human brain works predominantly with the analytic, logical thinking of language and mathematics.  It proceeds temporally and follows trails of linear reason and Asingle causation.@  In contrast, the right hemisphere works holistically, taking in fields at a time, grasping in patterned gestalts intuitively.  It proceeds spatially and tacitly (without language).  Therefore, the right hemisphere may be in closer touch with the subtle plane than the left.

 

Reason, being founded in distinctions, can at best only grope toward wholeness.  To the extent that analytic thought reduces the object of knowledge to an object, it may contain structural violence (pp. 65 and 125-126). 

 

2.                  Archetypes: Archetypes are the  psychic counterpart to biological instincts. While on the physical plane, man=s life is vectored by his biological drives, on the psychical plane, it is molded by archetypes.  Archetypes prescribe the kind of experience we will have, not what the particular experience will be, for this is an individual matter.  To the extent that archetypes relate to aggression, they may push us toward violence B though not directly to war itself, since war also entails the concept of substitutability, that is, emotional displacement, a concept absent in other types of violence (p. 40; Kelly pp. 41-60).

 

3.                  Scientism: If we see the world only as science describes it to us B empty of values, purposes, life meanings, qualities and vision B then we may rely on science (and its utilitarian spin-off, technology) to solve social problems.  Hence, weapons of mass destruction and their use:

AIf a hammer is the only tool one learns to use, it is tempting to regard everything as if it were a nail@ (p. 117).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.                  Lack of a Vertical Axis: Traditionally, hope is vertical, or at least trans-historical B Avertical@ meaning that the fundamental change that is hoped for is an ascent of the individual soul through a medium (the world) which does not itself change substantially but provides stable rungs on which the soul can climb.  The AKingdom@ will differ in kind from the history that preceded it and will be inaugurated by God=s direct, if not apocalyptic intervention.  Progress is not envisioned as socio-political.  Each individual soul must ascend. 

 

In contrast, the modern version of hope is emphatically historical and its imagery is horizontal, its eye being on an earthly future instead of the heavens.  Hope for the individual relies on the hope that human life as a whole can be improved.

 

If being has no upper stories, then hope has no vertical prospect and if it is to go anywhere, it can only be forward or horizontally.  The modern doctrine of progress is the child of hope=s elan.  Yet at every turn, we are confronted by our over-estimate of ourselves as rational creatures B as when we seed the earth, our home, with weapons of mass destruction (pp. 118-120).

 

Spiritual Poverty: Unaware of the levels of reality beyond his own parochially terrestrial one, man lives Apoor@ B that is, distant from the Infinite.  When man kills, he does not realize that, on a higher level, he also kills himself.  He denies the unity between himself and the Aother@:

AAsk not for whom the bell tolls.  It tolls for thee.@

Ernest Hemingway 

     1899-1961

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     References

 

All page numbers refer to:                                                     

Smith, Huston, Forgotten Truth B The Common Vision of the World=s Religions (HarperSan Francisco), 1976/1992.

 

The sources of quotations are as follows:

Eaton, Gai, AMan as Viceroy,@ Studies in Comparative Religion, Autumn 1973.

 

Lovejoy, Arthur, The Great Chain of Being, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA), 1936.

 

Penfield, Wilder, The Mystery of the Mind B A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain (Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.), 1975.

 

Plzak, Richard, Jr., AParadox East and West,@ Senior Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973 (unpublished).

 

Schilling, Harold, The New Consciousness in Science and Religion (United Church Press, Philadelphia, PA), 1973.  

 

Sherrington, Charles, Man on His Nature (Doubleday/Anchor Books, New York, N.Y.), 1953.

 

Vivekananda (1863-1902): Hindu mystic, major exponent of Vedanta philosophy. 

 

In AMy Thoughts@:

Kelly, Raymond, Warless Societies and the Origin of War (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI), 2000).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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