The 9 Petalled Flower Of Peace: Petal 4 - Philosophy and Religion

In fact, this is exactly what the greatest philosophers of all ages have always tried to do; Aristotle always summed up previous thought on a topic before trying to think things out for himself; Pythagoras had travelled extensively to imbibe wisdom from all possible known sources; Guru Nanak consciously travelled endlessly in search of wisdom; Buddha sat at the feet of innumerable teachers before reaching his own enlightenment; Hegel consciously set out to master all known philosophical, metaphysical and religious thought before putting things in his own new way; Bertrand Russell delved deeply into the history of philosophy before putting forward his own tentative steps towards a philosophy of peace; King Solomon always sought to learn from his guests and from all visitors, wherever they came from, and to search inwardly for the deepest wisdom hidden in everything. This is also why Jains advocate anekantvada, remaining sceptical about the possibility of final closure in philosophical discourse; there will always be a new philosophical perspective coming along, so we should remain humble and not advocate that our own perspective is absolute. For a discussion of Anekantvada in Jain philosophy and related topics, see Acharya Mahapragya Anekanta The Third Eye (Ladnun, 2002) where it is written "in the jain agamas there are 5 kinds of knowledge explained. Among them the fourth is manahaparyavagyan. The one who has this knowledge reads other people's minds. He is able to known how the other person is thinking. In Nandi Sutra this knowledge has been discussed at length. In the discussion, the writer has posed many questions and given their answers too. The question "Can manahparyavagyan look into the mind of a person who lived ten thousand years ago? In the text of the reply it is said, that, yes, it can be known very clearly" In my own PhD thesis I coined the phrase transpersonal history to mean a) a new field of historiography which studies the history of transpersonal psychology and transpersonal thinking in different knowledge fields and in intellectual and spiritual culture generally and b) developing new methods and ways of conducting historical research. If indeed within the mind of man there lurks hidden this faculty of accessing deep past knowledge, the implications for history are enormous, and therefore the topic should be researched in more depth, and Jain scholars should conduct in-depth discussions with Western historians and philosophers. Once we have peace and non-violence established as the norm on earth, and are no longer in fear of blowing the world up in nuclear omnicide, then perhaps we can have time for such researches

Too much of modern day philosophical practice is about criticising or attacking other people's views: different schools and isms ceaselessly bicker among themselves; to gain a PhD one has to "defend" it against criticism and attack from other scholars. All this is a kind of subtle violence. Let us rather see the good in everyone's point of view and perspective, and if we are gifted with a greater vision, then gently urge our fellows to raise their intellectual perceptions to a higher level so that they too can see the awesome wonder of the true intellectual enlightenment (as Plato described it, the Vision of the One) which alone can reduce us to the status of becoming Lovers of Wisdom, rather than her mere hacks or pedlars

As Gandhi put it, to become a lover of truth (Satyagrahi) is not a job for cowards but requires supreme energy and commitment; Jesus likewise urged his followers to become mathesis (disciples in Latin, the Greek is from the same root as mathematician and means someone devoted to studying and learning) capable of developing self- discipline; Buddha explained that without energy, the spiritual path cannot be walked, and Mahavira and the Jains likewise find in their own quest for enlightenment immense energy, thus enabling them, for example, to undertaken great educational pilgrimages on foot. To become a true philosopher requires all this level or degree of commitment and energy, and is not merely an intellectual pastime – that is sophistry. The commitment however is of an intellectual kind p- a commitment to truth, rigorous acceptance of intellectual discipline, spiritual empiricism, taking nothing on mere outer authority or faith butt proving inwardly the spiritual-empirical bases of metaphysical truth claims (as does transpersonal psychology in relation to paranormal and mystical phenomenon).

Sophiaphobia means literally the "fear of wisdom" and is a medical-psychological condition identified by the author and is a newly proposed philosophical and scientific term for the individual and social psycho-social condition of being afraid of knowledge and / or wisdom." See Daffern, Thomas Clough Sophiaphobia (IIPSGP Publications, USA, 2007). It is a serious problem in the social psychology of many of our leading institutions, in which intelligence is valued less than obedience, and wisdom less than a willingness to suspend independent thought and simply to follow "orders" and "directions". Fascist and authoritarian social structures and institutions demand blind obedience and hate those who ask "why" or "what if" questions. Hitler and Franco hated intellectuals unless they simply peddled the Nazi and Fascist propaganda as if it was revealed truth and the same was true of Stalinism. In the history of mankind, many intellectuals have been persecuted and killed by power hungry war lords. In the 20^th century many freethinkers and intellectuals have ended up in the death camps of Germany or Russia or China. All this is a kind of intellectual violence, leading to physical violence and killing, of those who do not see things the same as you do. This is why some kind of tolerance, some kind of courage, and some kind of moderation of views has to be the bedrock of a philosophical approach to peace and nonviolence. It turns out this is exactly what the Jains have been teaching all along

In Jain philosophy, true philosophy would be equated with right knowledge, as Acharya Mahapragya explained: in Philosophical Foundations of Jainism (Delhi, 2002) p. 107 "According to Jain philosophy, such knowledge does not mean merely knowing the facts and happenings; the real knowledge is that which is guided by samyak daarsana – right world view.. According to Jainism, the true knowledge is that which ultimately makes one unattached to material objects, and makes one's mind set in perfect equanimity and a sense of spiritual friendliness towards all is developed in him. That is why Jain philosophy prescribes the trinity of right world-view (samyak darsana), knowledge (samyak jnana) and conduct (samyak acara)."

Being a spiritual seeker of wisdom, a true lover of wisdom, often means you come into conflict with those in false positions of power or authority; it may mean you question those who are using corruption or manipulation to advance their own political goals, or it might mean you have to speak out against injustice you see going on around you in this world – to do all this means finding inner courage within oneself not to be silenced, and also the intelligence to avoid being assassinated or judiciously murdered as so many intellectuals and seers have been in the past. As Kant's rallying cry for philosophers put it; "Sapere Aude" – "Dare to be Wise".

The issue of interfaith relations is crucial for the future peace of the world. As someone involved at the highest level in interfaith diplomacy for many years, having attended many international conferences with religious experts, and met personally many leading thinkers of interfaith theology, it has been brought to my awareness that without healing and reconciliation between the rival theologies and belief systems on the planet, we are not ever going to get serious and lasting peace; as Prof. Hans Kung has said, without peace between the religions, there can be no peace. By achieving understanding between the religions, it is certain that there would be less violence, as each would understand where the other is coming from. Historians and philosophers can examine the foundation and evolution of each faith tradition, by examining their sacred texts in details, and placing them in their wider historical context, thus enabling us to reach general conceptions of how spirituality itself, and wisdom, interface with human historical development. Also, by focusing on the common spiritual disciplines and practices that underlie all religious teachings, we can discover common elements that derive from mankind's universal spiritual quest, thus leading to collective enlightenment, rather than separate ghettos of religious isolationism

There can be no doubt that all religions and truly spiritual philosophical systems have been given to humankind by Teachers (of whatever kind) at crucial moments in history and prehistory, and that all these true Teachers had reached a deep universal understanding and perfection of enlightenment, and that all such Teachers were motivated and guided by compassion and love for humankind. However many means they may have used according to time, circumstances, intelligence, intuition and development of the people they spoke to it was always to guide people to the same ultimate goal: to become truly and completely human, which includes human omniscience – the purpose of existence. Logically their teachings, in their original purity can not be contradictory or opposite. It is the mind which creates contradiction, because Truth itself presents only paradoxes, not exclusive separate standpoints. For us in our times of global communication and mixing it is the challenge to heighten our intuition by unraveling paradoxes and finding the core of all Religion

By focusing on the commonalities within the spiritual teachings of mankind, and by emphasising scholarship that can tease out these common universal values and virtues embedded within these systems, and by developing educational work that brings these facts to students and pupils around the world, we can gradually move in the direction of a truly spiritually literate world, rather than the present status quo, whereby most people are mono-literate, ie. they have only a certain degree of knowledge about their own tradition, and very little about that of others. It is to rectify this situation that I spent some years as a religious studies and philosophy teacher in schools in the UK, developing and modelling the Periodic Table Of The World's Religious And Philosophical Traditions. Just as a chemist would be regarded as illiterate if they only had knowledge of one or two chemical elements, and instead must master the complex whole of the Periodic Table of the elements, consisting of 118 separate elements. In the same way, my Periodic Table Of The World's Religious And Philosophical Traditions consists of 168 different religious or philosophical traditions, grouped in various blocks, exactly as the chemical elements are. Unless a student has acquired at least a certain degree of knowledge about each of them, it is my considered opinion that person will remain effectively religiously and philosophically illiterate or semi-literate at best. Looking to the future, as educational standards in religious studies and philosophy increase worldwide, and as religious literacy improves, we can expect humility, tolerance, moderation and moral intelligence to increase, along with enlightenment, love and respect from each religion to every other religious and philosophical tradition. The Jaipur Declaration calls the world's spiritual and religious leaders to join this mission, in which, instead of simply evangelising for their own world-view, they are campaigning also to increase the religious and intellectual literacy of everyone in increasing our collective knowledge about the 168 different traditions that exist on this planet, and whose followers have to learn to live together in peace and harmony. Violence between different religious followers should gradually become unthinkable, as this increasing level of inter-religious literacy spreads and develops worldwide; people of spiritual faith and vision should rather come to respect and honour one another, learn and share with each other, rather than consider engaging in violence against each other. This was actually the vision of all the greatest spiritual and religious leaders who have ever incarnated on earth, each in their own way try to bring forward a new synthesis of existing learning and ideas (eg Abraham, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Zoroaster, Plato, Aristotle, Christ, St Paul, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Ali, Taliesin, Merlin, the 12 Imams, Ibn Sina, Rumi, Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi, Mulla Sadra, Guru Nanak, Deganawidah, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Duns Scotus, Isaac Luria, Spinoza, Hegel, Max Muller, Jung, Gandhi, Tagore, Aurobindo, Blavatsky, Aldous Huxley, Assagioli, Alice Bailey, Abraham Maslow, Fritjhof Schuon, Ken Wilber, Eckhart Tolle etc.). So in bringing about an epoch of peace between all the religions, we are actually bringing to fruition all the best teachings and ideals of each previous spiritual leader of mankind. Enlightenment is not the exclusive property of any one lineage or traditions, but the common heritage of all of us.

In 1996 following a major conference on religion and peace at the Vatican, I founded the Multifaith and Multicultural Mediation Service (MMMS) which remains the only specialised mediation service on the planet dedicated to working with religious leaders and visionaries to solve interfaith religious conflicts. More needs to be done in the way of training different religious representatives in this work, and also in encouraging them, to work together to solve religiously connected conflicts such as in the Balkans, the Middle east,. South Asia etc. the United Nations is unable to help, as a purely secular organisation which has never really appreciated or understood the power of spirituality. The European Union and other big trans-national conglomerates likewise cannot really help mediate such conflicts as they likewise fail to see the importance of spirituality. So it is down to the genuine spiritual visionaries of the planet to come together and sort out these conflicts. The British Commonwealth might be able to help where they are occurring within or between commonwealth members

This is the crunch point – by asking of our religious traditions on the planet that they focus on what is common to them all, instead of emphasising their differences, peace can come sooner rather than later. Academic experts in religious studies have been doing this work for many decades now, but it is time now for the religious practitioners at grass roots level to realise that they too can embrace a pluralistic framework of comparative spirituality without having to surrender their own specific teachings. What needs to happen however is that the specific dogmatics and fundament principles of each faith, need to be understood and reinterpreted within the light of transpersonal philosophy and Sophia Perennis. As a scholar of comparative religion myself, I have undertaken a commentary on the Qur'an, the New Testament, and the Ketuvim of Judaism as a start in this direction, from this wider universalist perspective, and interested readers can go into this there in much greater detail, see Daffern, Thomas Clough Commentary on the Tanakh: Ketuvim - A Transpersonal Historical Approach (Lulu Publications, 2012) Daffern, Thomas Clough Commentary on the New Testament - A Transpersonal Historical Approach (Lulu Publications, 2013) Daffern, Thomas Clough Commentary on the Holy Qur'an - A Transpersonal Historical Approach (Lulu Publications, 2014)

Hate crimes are a growing problem in the modern world; some Muslims have been deluded into thinking that their faith requires them to hate other faiths, even though the Koran specifically urges tolerance and amity towards other believers in many important passages; some Christians likewise preach anti-Islamic ideas; anti Semitism which is still sadly widespread, is also a kind of religious hate crime which led to the holocaust, and whose embedded attitudes are still making a lasting peace settlement involving Israel and Palestine a perplexing challenge. Some extreme Hindus also urge violence against Muslims and Christians. One of them killed Gandhi. Instead of hate crimes, religious leaders should be committing the virtue of love; instead of terrorism they should be advocating Joyism

Most if not all religious and spiritual teachings realise that help for peace workers in incarnation at any one time can come from transcendental realms, and that when great saints depart from incarnation they live on out of body, and can still shower down grace and wisdom into our realms. Scientific evidence accrued from 150 years of scientific spiritualism and parapsychological research has put these faith claims onto a firmer scientific footing of research as to how our actual metapsychological and spiritual processes make this all possible

This idea, which was shared with the conference in Jaipur and discussed affirmatively, is simple: at present, the Eastern Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem is permanently closed – bricked up in fact. According to ancient legend this gate will only be reopened when the true Messiah comes to Jerusalem, and will usher in a time of peace and justice for all mankind. There will be celebrations and reconciliation and a time of universal happiness. The problem of course it that the three main monotheistic religions of the Middle East, Judaism, Islam and Christianity all more or less disagree about the exact timing and implications of this messianic event. Judaism has teachings locked inside its mystical traditions that pertain to this event but the exact details of when and where remain unknown and perhaps unknowable. Some more secular Jews also disagree that the whole idea of a Messiah is any longer viable or useful. Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and that he entered Jerusalem through this gate on several occasions. They believe that Christ will indeed return to "judge the living and the dead" and usher in the era of the messianic kingdom. Muslims also believe that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, and agree that he will return to earth, and come once more to Jerusalem, and enter through this gate, but this time he will be accompanied by Muhammad, and they will both return through this gate to "judge the living and the dead." Many different groups of Christians, Jews and Muslims all interpret these events differently, and also disagree about when and how exactly they will take place. There is common consensus about only two things: 1) The Golden Gate will be opened when the Messianic era will be inaugurated 2) This will be a time of justice and peace for the region and for the whole world. The Golden Gate project can be summed up very simply: it is time for us as humanity as a whole to open this gate together, to clear away this blocked energy and to make a stand for holistic peace together, on behalf of all mankind, and for a group of representative religious and spiritual leaders from all mankind: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sufi, Buddhist, Hindu, Bahai, Zoroastrian, Sikh, Pagan and Primal religions, American Indian, Hopi, Mayan, Shamans, Yoga practitioners, Shinto, Druid, Jain, Humanist, Scientific, New Age etc. to enter this gate symbolically on behalf of all mankind, and in so doing to give a pledge that we are ready to take a new step forward as planetary leaders and to work for lasting peace together until it is finally achieved

Sadly some religious leaders wrong actions cause all religions to get tarnished with the same brush, and lead to an increase of scepticism and indifference to spirituality, with things like child abuse and other forms of corruption being perpetrated by so called religious leaders or priests; people standing for authentic spirituality and ethics have an extra duty to act morally in the midst of the many temptations that life has to offer us as human beings. Not for nothing did Christ pray "Lead us not into temptation".

Acharya Mahapragya put it succinctly when he wrote the following: "It is through meditation that one achieves a high morale, force of mind, pure consciousness. Through mediation, one is filled with such energy as renders one capable of meeting any problem. With great energy pulsating within oneself, one faces every challenge light-heartedly, and one resolves it too. A man then does not lose his balance in any predicament, whatsoever". see Acharya Mahapragya The Mirror of the Self (Ladnun, 2007) p. 135.

This sentence sums up the spiritual work ahead of us all on this planet: to transmute, by a kind of spiritual alchemy, the darts and arrows of misfortune, into the flowers and petals of auspicious karma. This is why the Jaipur declaration takes the form of a 9 Petalled Flower Of Peace. In order for us to succeed in this task, we all have to work together, we need faith that it is possible, and we need intelligence and strategies to put the ideals we feel in our spiritual hearts into action in the "real world". It is a daily struggle for all of us, for as Aristotle said, virtue is a habit, not simply an idea; our hope however is that through acquiring and practising the habits of study, meditation, prayer and charitable deeds, we can indeed transform the negative clouds that overhang our planet into shards of wisdom, or as Isaac Luria put it, we can draw together the scattered forces of light back into the divine unity