THE

"The Philosopher's Stone is called the most ancient, secret or unknown, natural, incomprehensible, heavenly, blessed, sacred Stone of the Sages. It is described as being true, more certain than certainty itself, the arcanum of all arcana - the Divine virtue and efficacy, which is hidden from the foolish, the aim and end of all things under heaven, the wonderful epilogue or conclusion of all the labours of the Sages - the perfect essence of all the elements, the indestructible body which no element can injure, the quintessence; the double and living mercury which has in itself the heavenly spirit - the cure of all unsound and imperfect metals - the everlasting light - the panacea for all diseases - the glorious Phoenix - the most precious of all treasures - the chief good of Nature."

Page 244 (number omitted)

"On my return to Wales I was surprised to find out that my neighbour was a great admirer of Ibn ' Arabi, a Sufi poet and thinker who was born in Murcia in south-east Spain in 1165, Islamic spiritual alchemy reached its supreme expression in his works, but she warned me that' he was not easy to understand, He would often quote the prophet Muhammad: 'The first gift God gave me was reading between the lines!' In his own writings, as in other alchemical works, it is necessary 'to read between the lines' since there are many levels and hidden meanings. They are all journeys of the soul towards God.

His full name was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn ' Ali Muhyi ai-Din al-Hatimi al-Andalus. In hIs youth, Ibn ' Arabi was exposed to the gnostic and mystical tradition of the Sufis in Andalusia. He had a thorough grounding in the Qur'an but was not deeply impressed by philoso-phers, preferring the works of 'sages' (hakim). His one exception was the 'divine Plato'. He felt theology and philosophy were not entirely in vain, but those who relied on their intellect could only grasp it tiny part of the truth. In Ibn ' Arabi's view 'there is not one single thing that cannot be known through revelation [kashf] or spiritual experience [wujad}'^.l Only the man of faith would be able to reach the seventh heaven and experience the full light of God.

Ibn 'Arabi remained for thirty years in Seville, the capital of the empire of the Almohades dynasty. He travelled widely throughout the Islamic world, from Spain to Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, / Page 245 / Iraq, the Holy Land and Asia Minor. He eventually ended up in Damascus in Syria where he died in 1240. His travels led him to believe that God reveals himself in this world whatever one:s religion:

As a devout if unorthodox Muslim; he made the great pilgrimage to Mecca. But his real travelling was within. From an early age, he experienced visions of divine light. Indeed, his works - which run to more than 400 - are records of his spiritual development and inner transformation.

Ibn 'Arabi wrote no direct works on practical alchemy, but the spirit of spiritual alchemy pervades his writings. In his Bezels of Wisdom. (Fusus al-hikam) and the Meccan Revelations (al-Futahat al Makkiya), he expressed his belief in the Oneness of Being: the One in the Many and the Many in the One. He gave the most important exposition of this central Sufi conception of nature in terms drawn from the Qur'an and from the Hermetic sources. There is no separation of God from the Creation; he is the Creation. All things and beings are his emanations. Whereas the Qur'an says: 'there is but one God', Ibn- , Arabi asserts: 'there is nothing but God'.3 He rejects the notion of there being any intermediaries such as a First Cause or Demiurge; there is but the 'One and Only'.

God is Light and the objects in the world - animals, trees, microbes - are all manifestations of His Light. In the Meccan Revelations, Ibn , Arabi describes the resplendent vision which the blessed can hope to experience as they gather on a snow-white hill in the presence of God: 'The Divine light pervades the beings of the elect and radiates from them, reflected as if by mirrors, on everything around them. The spiritual enjoyment produced by the contemplation of this reflection is even greater than that of the Vision itself.'4

At the same time, the notion of the Logos or the Word plays an important part in Ibn ' Arabi's thought. The archetypes of all things are aspects of God's Names and Qualities which exist in a latent state in the Divine Intellect. God gives them being so that they become / Page 246 / manifested, yet what is seen in the sensible world is only the shadow of the archetypes. The Qur'an says that the Absolute reveals itself in ninety-nine Divine Names but Ibn 'Arabi suggests that they are num- berless. The Logos, however, consists of the twenty-two Divine Names which take the form of different energies and are manifestations of the divine essence. The 'Great Waves', he says, are called gold and silver.

They are all expressed in the spirit of Muhammad who is the supreme model of the Perfect Man (a/-lnsan a/-kami/).⁵ He is an ideal which ordinary humans can emulate in the processing of realizing their divine nature. By reaching the centre of himself, the seeker has knowl-edge of God and of all things. In the Qur'an, it is written: 'He who knows himself knows his Lord.' The more one approaches one's inner reality, the more one is in tune with the cosmos. As humans we descend from the Absolute - a devolution - but we can also ascend to the Absolute - an evolution - with the Perfect Man as our ideal.

This involves the Sufi goal of 'passing away' (al-fana) which is not so much an annihilation of the self but the passing away of ignorance and a growing awareness of the oneness of all things. Ibn ' Arabi says that you must 'die before you die', that is, pass away from the illusion of separateness. He uses the metaphor of a mirror to illustrate this point. When a person of ordinary intellect looks at a mirror he sees a reflected image of himself but not the mirror. The mirror is veiled from him. But at a higher lever of understanding, the mirror is not a veil for in it he sees not only himself but the Form of the Absolute assuming his own form. Indeed, God is never to be seen in immaterial form. 'The sight of God in woman,' Ibn ' Arabi says, 'is the most perfect of all.'⁶

In the Qur'an it is written: 'All men are asleep; only when they die do they wake up.' Ibn ' Arabi went further and said: 'The whole of life is a dream within a dream.' He also calls this world the 'shadow' of God: the archetypes are dark because they are distant from the light of Being just as a faraway mountain appears black. But even when we wake up and mystically experience the Absolute in 'unveiling' (kashf) and 'immediate tasting' (dhaq), the Absolute is unknowable in itself, and remains the mystery of mysteries.⁷

It was the aim of Ibn ' Arabi's life, as it was with all the Sufis, to stand in the light of God. Dreams and visions played a particularly important role for him: they are the 'inward eye' of the heart through which one can see everyday experiences as reflections of the archetypal / Page 247 / ideas of the Absolute. He relates one such vision in the Journey through the Night (Kitab al-isra) which describes the ascent of the body to the Throne of Light through the seven heavens where he meets different prophets (including Idris-Hermes). On the journey, he is asked:

Tell me, friend, which place you want me to take you to. . .

-I want to go to the city of the Messenger, in search

Of the Station of Radiance and the Red Sulphur.

Red Sulphur is clearly a synonymior the Philosopher:s Stone.

I found the work to be a wonderful example of spiritual alchemy. The journey not only has the goal of finding the Red Sulphur but clearly reflects the different stages of the alchemical process in spiritual terms. It begins with the dissolution of the seeker's corporeal nature and the release of his spirit, which is then followed by a period of punishment by fire. He continues the ascent through the heavens until eventually he becomes 'nothing but light' in the seventh heaven. He then obtains the meaning of all the Divine Names and sees that they all 'referred to one and the same Object Named and to a single Essence: this Named was the object of my contemplation, and this Essence was my very own being'.

Ibn ' Arabi realizes that the whole journey is within, a process of realizing his true self: 'The journey I had made was only inside myself, and it was towards myself that I had been guided: from this I knew that I was a servant in a state of purity, without the slightest trace of sovereignty.'⁸ He discovers the Red Sulphur and is totally transformed by the experience. It is a moment of absolute knowledge of the self and of the universe: 'For when you know yourself, your -"I-ness" vanishes and you know that you and God are one and the same.'9 The quest for the Red Sulphur is not so much the attainment of a goal, but simply the realization of who and where you are, of rediscovering your essential nature as part of the Oneness of Being.

On reading the work, I felt that Ibn ' Arabi had truly attained the goal of spiritual alchemy, union with the divine ground of our being and a vision of eternity. The supreme experience still eluded me but at least I had a stronger sense of the goal and of what I might expect.

Despite their different historical and cultural backgrounds, I was struck by the similarities between Sufi and Taoist spiritual alchemy and between their greatest exponents Ibn ' Arabi and Lao Tzu. While / Page 248 / the former was prolific and the latter wrote nothing they seem to have come to the same conclusions about the inner transformation of the sage or Perfect Man. Although they believed that the Absolute or the Tao existed, the ultimate ground of existence remained the mystery of mysteries for both of them.¹⁰ I felt they had both touched on funda-mental truths about the universe and our place within it which are valid for all cultures and times.

Despite the struggle between the Christian kings and the Muslim caliphs in Spain, there were periods of peace when there was consider- able coming and going of Christian scholars to the Islamic centres of learning across the wavering frontiers. They were not only eager to obtain Arabic translations of Greek works of philosophy, but keen to acquaint themselves with the Muslim contribution to science in general and to alchemy in particular which was an entirely new subject for them. The first Arabic work on alchemy to appear in Latin manuscripts in Europe in the thirteenth century was the anonymous Turba Philosophorum, or The Assembly of the Sages, a remarkable work of great philosophical interest and literary merit. It may well have been written around 900 by Uthman ibn Suwaid, of Akhmin in Egypt. The author quotes from the Alexandrian alchemists so he must have been in touch with the fountainhead of the Hermetic tradition in Egypt. Hermes and Zosimus are mentioned and Panoflus cites the famous triadic formula attributed to Ostanes and first mentioned by the Alexandrian alchemist Democritus: 'Nature rejoices in Nature, Nature contains Nature, and Nature overcomes Nature.'¹¹

The Turba takes the form of a dialogue between twelve philoso-phers who meet to discuss the nature of alchemy. The speeches are full of rhetorical flourishes and are often addressed to 'O, all ye Seekers after this Art'. The sages have Greek names and some refer to real historical characters, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristotle and Democritus. The author clearly knew his early Greek philosophy for they express theories which they were reported to have espoused. Pythagoras, for example, discusses the relations between numbers and the 'alchemical symbol of Man'. In fact, the Turba is the earliest evidence of Greek philosophy in Arabic literature.¹² But while the Hermetic cosmology is given as a context for alchemy, the author makes his Islamic faith clear. He asserts that nature is uniform, that all / Page 249 / creatures of the upper and lower world are composed of four elements, but also that the creator of the world was Allah.

The work contained the first full discussion of the Philosopher's Stone that I had come across since Zosimus. The philosopher Belus declares:

A report has gone abroad that the Hidden Glory of the Philos-opher is a stone and not a stone, and that it is called by many names, lest the foolish should recognise it. Certain wise men have designated it after one fashion, namely, according to the place where it is generated; others have adapted another, founded upon its colour, some of whom have termed it the Green Stone; by some other it is called -the Stone of the most intense Spirit of Brass, not to be mixed with bodies. . . some have distinguished it astronom-ically or arithmetically; it has already received a thousand titles, of which the best is: - 'That which is produced out of metals'. So also others have called it the Heart of the Sun, and yet others ha-ve declared it to be that which is brought out of quicksilver with the milk of volatile things.¹³

At first sight all this is very bewildering, but the names are not mutually exclusive; indeed, they describe different aspects and properties of the Philosopher's Stone. This is made clear at the end of the work by Agmon, who suggests that the names are multiplied so that the 'vulgar' might be deceived. Rest assured, he tells us, that 'the Stone is one thing'. But how can we recognize it? By its properties, of course, which are indeed impressive:

The strength thereof, shall never be corrupted, but the same, when it is placed in the fire, shall be increased. If you seek to dissolve it, it shall be dissolved; but if you would coagulate it, it shall be coagulated. Behold, no one is without it, and yet all do need it! There are many names given to it, and yet it is called by one only, while, if need be, it is concealed. It is also a Stone and not a stone, spirit, soul and body; it is white, volatile, concave, hairless, cold, and yet no one can apply the tongue with impunity to its surface. If you wish that it should fly, it flies; if you say that it is not water, you speak falsely.¹⁴

It is clear here that the Islamic alchemists saw their art as a form of spiritual transformation in the same way as the ancient Egyptians. / Page 250 / What a:pplies to metals also applies to humans. The 'Philosopher' mentioned in the following passage would seem to be our old friend Zosimus: the definition of the Art is the liquefaction of the body and the separation of the soul from the body, seeing copper, like man, has a soul and a body. Therefore, it behoves you, O all ye seekers of the Doc-trine, to destroy the body and extract the soul therefrom! Wherefore the Philosopher said that the body does not penetrate the body, but that there is a subtle nature, which is the soul, and it is that which tinges and penetrates the body. In nature, therefore, there is a body and a soul.¹⁵

The Turba Philosophorum played a pivotal role in the transition. of Egyptian alchemy via the Muslims to Europe. It also ensured the continuity of the Hermetic tradition. Its special combination of philos- ophy, religion and science became typical of medieval European alchemy.

The other famous text bequeathed by the Islamic alchemists to the West is the Tabula Smaragdina, better known as the Emerald Tablet. In my opinion, it is the most profound single work of spiritual alchemy to emerge from the whole Hermetic tradition. An Arabic version exists in the works of Jabir which dates it to at least the eighth century. Translated from Arabic into Latin, it was reprinted countless times in the Middle Ages in Europe. It is one of the most influential documents to emerge from the Hermetic tradition and a key text in the under- standing of all subsequent alchemy. Nothing stands so powerfully as the words themselves:

1. True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of the one thing.

2. And as all things were by the contemplation of the one, so all things arose from this one thing by a single act of adaptation.

3. The father thereof is the Sun, the mother the Moon.

4. The Wind carried it in its womb, the Earth is the nurse thereof. / Page 251 /

5. It is the father of all the works of wonder throughout the whole world.

6. The power thereof is perfect.

7. If it be cast on to the Earth, it will separate the element of the Earth from that of Fire, the subtle from the gross.

8. With great sagacity it doth ascend gently from Earth to Heaven.

9. Again it doth descend to the Earth, and uniteth in itself the force from things superior and things inferior.

10. Thus. thou wilt possess the glory of the brightness of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly from thee.

11. This thing is the strong fortitude of all strength, for it overcometh every subtle thing and doth penetrate every solid substance.

12. Thus was the world created.

13. Hence there will be marvellous adaptations achieved, of which the manner is this.

14. For this reason I am called Hermes Trismegistus, because I hold three parts of the wisdom of the whole world.

15. That which I had to say about the operation of the Sol is completed.¹⁶

The work is attributed to our old friend Hermes Trismegistus the 'Thrice-blessed' who has 'three parts of the wisdom of the whole world' and access to the three realms of being: the earth, the Under-world and the heavens.

There have been countless interpretations of the Emerald Tablet and I thought long and hard about the elusive meaning of this mystical text. First, I found a familiar idea from ancient Egypt: 'that which is above is like to that which is below' or, to put it more succinctly: 'As above, so below.' The same forces work through the earth as they do throughout heaven, in the microcosm of humanity and in the macro-cosm of the universe. There is a correspondence and a sympathy between the two which only have the appearance of separation: 'that which is below is like to that which is above'.

What are the miracles of the one thing'? They are the miracles of the universe as a whole, of its unity in diversity, of the fact that All - is One, and One is All, 'as all things were by the contemplation of the one'. A single consciousness permeates all beings and things, known as God, anima mundi, Universal Mind, Great Spirit, world./ Page 252 / soul. In the Hermetic tradition the universe is often represented by the circle, the symbol of eternity and of gold. .

What follows next in the Emerald Tablet would seem to be a version of the creation myth of ancient Egypt. Re, symbolized by the sun, told the names of the creation to Thoth, symbolized by the moon, who by uttering them brought them into existence - the 'single act of adaptation'. The Wind is the goddess Nut, and the nurse is Earth, the god Geb, reversing as the ancient Egyptians did the familiar notion of mother earth and father sky.

At the same time, this would seem to be an alchemical allegory of the chemical wedding of the sun and the moon, Sol and Luna, who represent the universal male and female principles as well as gold and silver, sulphur and mercury. They produce the 'one thing', the power of which is perfect - the Philosopher's Stone. If cast on earth (prima materia) it dissolves it, separating the 'element of the Earth from that of Fire, the subtle from the gross'. In the process of distillation, it ascends to heaven (as vapour) and descends to earth (as sublimate). In addition, it unites through coagulation 'the force from things superior and things inferior', the great and the small.

Of course, the whole alchemical process of the transformation of the elements is a spiritual allegory, describing the separation of the soul from the body ('the subtle from the gross') and its transformation into a purer form. If the work is successful, you become enlightened: 'all obscurity will fly far from thee'.

What does the Emerald Tablet tell us about the nature of the Philosopher's Stone? It focuses the power of the universal mind, it is 'the strong fortitude of aIr strength, for it overcometh every subtle thing and doth penetrate every solid substance'. The alchemist thus mirrors the work of the Creator in the Creation; 'thus was the world created'. And if the alchemist can discover the Philosopher's Stone he or she will be able to achieve 'marvellous adaptations', not only wit~ matter, but also with spirit, not only in the laboratory but in him or herself and in the world at large.

In a sense, the writing of the Emerald Tablet is an alchemical experiment itself. At the end, the Great Work is done. Thus Hermes finishes by saying: 'That which I had to say about the operation of the Sol is completed.'

Throughout the Emerald Tablet there is a deep awareness of the beauty and magnificence of the Creation. It celebrates 'all the works of / Page 253 / wonder throughout the whole world' and 'the glory and the brightness of the whole world' which the enlightened and transformed person, awakened from the dark slumber of ignorance, freed from the dross of material things, will be able to contemplate. It charts the voyage of the soul as it returns to its divine ground across the sea of materiality.

The exact origins of the Emerald Tablet are not clear. One probably Jewish legend claims that it was discovered by Sara, the wife of Abraham, who entered a cave near Hebron after the Flood and found it engraved in Phoenician characters on an emerald plate held in the hands of the corpse of Hermes Trismegistus. Other European commentators in the Middle Ages ascribed it to Alexander the Great or to the Pythagorean sage Apollonius of Tyana, giving it a Greek rather than a Middle Eastern origin.¹⁷ An Arabic writer, on the other hand, claims that there were three philosophers called Hermes, one who built the pyramids in Egypt (Thoth?), one who came from Babylon and who taught Pythagoras, and a third who lived in Egypt and wrote on alchemy. In fact, the 'three' Hermes would seem to describe the ancient origins, diffusion and continuity of the Hermetic tradition.

The exact date and authorship of the Emerald Tablet are also unknown. Apart from the abridged Arabic text of it discovered in the works ascribed to Jabir, a version came to light in The Secret of Creation, wrongly attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, which was written in the ninth century.¹⁸ It was probably translated from Syriac but may have been based on a much earlier Greek original. Whatever the exact origins of the text, when it was translated into Latin by Hugh of Santillana in the twelfth century, it became the bible of the medieval alchemists in Europe. It remains the greatest document of the Hermetic tradition.

But where did all this leave me in my search for the Philosopher's Stone? I had heard again the elusive voice of Zosimus in the Turba that it 'is a stone and not a stone'. I had been told by the Emerald Tablet that 'it overcometh every subtle thing'. But. would obscurity ever fly from me? Would I really be able to witness those 'marvellous adaptations' held tantalizingly before my vision? Would I ever on my journey find the Red Sulphur of Ibn ' Arabi and the divine light deep within myself? I decided to continue my quest amongst the extraordi-nary characters and arcane texts which brought alchemy from the Middle East to Europe in the twelfth century."

Page 91

"Out of millions of creatures created by God, man alone understands the why and wherefore of existence. Man alone has purpose and freedom of will. Man is the only creature who seeks an ultimate meaning of existence. Man alone occupies a unique status and is endowed with the power of will and a spark of responsibility.

The eminent Christian theologian, Karl Barth, belittles man; calls him sinful, insignificant, impotent; and says that there is nothing divine in him. Kierkegaard also regards man as a tragic and paradoxical creature. Man is not a fragmentary part of the world but contains the whole riddle of the universe and the solution of it. He bears witness to the lower as well as the higher world. He is a paradoxical being combining the opposite poles in himself. The probiem of life can be solved only when man is studied in relation to God and the universe. Man, as a matter of fact, is the mediator between God and the world. God always speaks to the world through man.

Existential yet spiritual, Guru Nanak realizes more than any man of his times the enormity of the problem of human existence: which is always beset with inevitable limits of time, space, contingency; by encounters, frictions and situations that involve not only oneself but others. Guru Nanak presents man in his totality: man projected into existence, being-in-the-spirit and being-in-the-world, man in the midst of multiplicity yet bearing within himself the sign and yearning for unity with the / Page 92 / Whole. Guru Nanak thus breaks away and stands apart from the Hindu-Buddhist.Jain tradition and counsels man against realizing his trascendence apart from society. Not only does he not separate man from humanity, but he recognises that man cannot achieve his transcendence save through humanity, that he cannot realize his being save with communion with the divine Being. Though men are separate, they are communica-ting elements of the Whole. They cannot deny the value of their mutual transcendence with respect to one another, nor their communion with the Whole.

Guru Nanak enunciated the positive path which involves our collaboration in the task of humanity and in the direction of the cosmos. In this way alone can man be exalted, and in this way alone can he experience the Truth. Guru Nanak totally rejects the negative path which involves a refusal to collaborate and espouses annihilation. In order to fulfil his social and spiritual role in humanity, man, according to Guru Nanak, must discover the indispensible force within himself which would enable him to reach the point of junction between the two poles of immanence and transcendence, between the one and the many.

Guru Nanak does not ask man to deny the temporal exist- ence but urges him not to succumb to the fascination of the visible and the exterior-and this in order to turn towards the inner light and Music that man has rcceived from God, and to move towards a more and more complete interiority which leads him to the vision of Reality. Man has simultaneously to breathe and live in two worlds-the temporal and the spiritual.

According to Guru Nanak, "what is there in the universe is also to be found in the human body and he who seeks will find it."! "Such is the divine play of the Creator that He has reflected the whole Cosmos in the human body."^{2 "}In the body we find the wealth of all the world."³ It is within an en- lightened mind and heart that the cosmos is evaluated and exist- ence and Being are revealed to man in a mysterious com-munication regarding its transcendence- a communication / Page 93 / which man must then express in his life and reflect in his actions. This is the metaphysical basis of the moral and spiritual teachings of the Master. It expresses the absolute criterion and the point to which his moral exigencies are referred. It is at the root of the certitude that is responsible for his constant assertion that each man can recognise in every other man the fact of human transcendence.

"The drop of water in the sea,

And the sea in the drop of water;

Who shall solve this riddle?

Who knoweth the secret?

He from Whom all creation came;

He Who surveyeth that which He hath created;

He, the Lord, is the One Knower of the secret.

And the man who understandeth this in his heart

Is freed from human bondage,

Is made at one with the Lord.

The Word leads to concentration.

Concentration to knowledge,

This is the riddle of the Guru's Word.

The eternal Light dwells in the human mind,

And the human mind is the emanation of that Light,

And our five sense become the Light's disciples."

Guru Nanak : Rag Ramkali, p. 878.

Far from affirming or denying it, Guru Nanak emphasised the contemplation of the All-pervading,. hearing the gentle murmur of the cosmos, and to centre the inspiration and wis-dom on humanity. Without apparent logic, his thought expands in a wavelike movement in ever-broadening circles from the point of extreme interiority. He returns again and again to man's purpose of existence, man's responsibility towards life and humanity, and to man himself who alone is capable of comprehending, interpreting and realizing the cosmic message.

The mixture of light and darkness that Guru Nanak perceives in man fascinates him. He sees man possessing in an eminent manner the five elements belonging to the terrestial elements and returning to them even as he simultaneously aspires to a beyond. In spite of its immensity the universe cannot satisfy him for he bears within him a grandeur that the cosmos cannot contain and a subtlety that all power of matter / Page 94 / cannot annihilate. In addition, he feels within him an indescri-bable flux, a going and coming, whose origin he is unable to ascertain and whose direction he cannot control. Like a bow he is taut and strung up, pointing towards the celestial whither he is projected after death to enjoy a radiant brilliance of the Eternal Light.

Guru Nanak requires of man self-transcendence-that is, the capacity to advance even to the point of involving a com-plete renunciation to the sense-order. He should nourish his inner being with positive and vivifying choices. He warns him that he must take courage; that the road he proposes is narro-wer and sharper than the sword's edge;^l that it is within; and that very few people can follow it perfectly. He pushes man on to his final terms until he trembles as he comes into contact with that which is the supreme Truth-until he experiences the tor-ments and joys of his becoming one with the perfect Being.

Man is called to a sphere of higher order, and it is his task to bring about its establishment by a series of choices. The desperate effort which moves him to practise a kind of evasion must be converted into an internal dynamism and its energy used to bring about a transformation. His mission is to judge, discriminate and assign to the universe its decisive and definite value. In him the movement of the cosmos must take on a new direction, so that its horizontal line becomes a vertical axis. If a man descends this vertical axis so that he opts for the terre-stial and the multiple, and if he becomes perverted; he degene- rates into becoming the type of man whom Guru Nanak calls manmukh, a man whose mind is turned towards the darkness of his own ignorance. However, if he accepts the invitation to ascend, aspiring to the celestial; then he enters again into him- / Page 95 / self, is transfigured and idealised as gurmukh, an integrated and enlightened man.

Living in the sensible world, the world of material and social reality, man has to move towards the ethical world of the spirit and abide with the light and principle of life. He is born to a new interior vitality which pushes him on to renew himself through moral discipline. Then he is able to act on himself and others and thus transform and order the universe. And it is man who is definitely charged with the peace and harmony of the world he lives in.

The ethical doctrines of Guru Nanak, though in conformity with Indian tradition, part from the Hindu and the Buddhist ethics in their emphasis on particular doctrines. The funda- mental difference is that Sikh ethics is life-affirming, while Hindu and Buddhist ethics are dominated by the ethical idealism of the monk and the recluse and are life-negating.

Nicholas Berdyev divides ethics into three distinct types: ethics of law, ethics of redemption and ethics of creativeness. Hindu and Islamic ethics, guided by the code of Manu and the Shariat respectively, are fundamentally ethics of Law. There is an oral code of conduct for the Sikhs dictating some rules to be obeyed by the Sikh brotherhood; but the Sikh scriptures contain no strict ethical laws resembling the Shariat or the code of Manu because the Sikh Gurus felt that the social ethics of man tends to differ with the change of time and civilization. Christian ethics is fundamentally one of redemption. The Sikh is supposed to seek enlightenment and not salvation. "I seek not kingdoms, i seek not mukti, 1 seek the love of Your lotus feet." "You enslaved me, O Lord, by binding me in the chains of the senses. I have broken those chains and am free. I have bound Thee with the chain of my love. Try, if Thou can free Thyself."² Sikh ethics can, therefore, rightly be called one of creative enlightenment and activism.

Luther in one of his letters writes: "Be a sinner and sin / Page 96 / strongly, but yet more strongly believe and rejoice in Christ who is the conqueror of sin, death and the world. So long as we are as we are, there must be sinning; this life is not the dwelling-place of righteousness." Guru Nanak controverts this theory. No amount of faith can save a man who consciously sins. The grace of God comes to those who avoid sinning. Sin exists to be overcome and it is the vocation of the spiritual man to overcome it. Sin is no rival principle ruling in its own right. It exists as an obstacle to progress. Even at its strongest, it can-not resist the power of goodness.

"If thou hast not seen the devil, look at thine own self," says Jalal-ud-din Rumi. "Evil and good are twin brothers," say the Gurus, "which are found in every human being."^l "Your own self is your own Cain that murders your own Abel", says William Law. Ignorance is the source of evil, and wisdom the source of virtue.

Yet, according to Guru Nanak, spirituality, goodness and virtues are useless, if they sink to dangerous individualism and seek personal salvation only. When the Yogis who had long retired into the Himalayan peaks for personal salvation ask Nanak about the prevailing conditions of the world of men (mataloka), Guru Nanak gives his reply, with all respect, though his reply is not free from irony. He asks in return: "When sages and perfect men like you who have acquired enlightenment keep hiding in the mountains, who will save the world and what do you expect the world of men to be?² These words clearly bring out the distinction between the ethics of those religions which preach an escape from the world and society and Sikhism which preaches that religious and spiritual life should be em-bedded in society and humanity. According to Guru Nanak, enlightenment and spirtuality should inspire man to dedicate his life and genius to the service of humanity, When he visited a village full of notorious people, he cursed the people there by saying, "May you live here for ever." But when he reached another village which was full of virtuous people, he blessed them saying, "May you all be uprooted." Guru Nanak wanted virtue to spread through social activities of the virtuous people / Page 97 / and evil to be confined within as small a place as possible. Thereby he also emphasised his ethics of creative enlightenment, in which he demanded that every enlightened person should cease to live for himself.

"Truth is higher than everything, but higher than truth is character,"¹ says Guru Nanak. The importance of a religion can be judged only by ethical tests. Immoral conduct can never be a feature of spiritual religion; moral life must be its tempo-ral aspect. And Guru Nanak considered the following cardinal virtues as essential for the religious discipline of a Sikh:

1. sat, santokh, vicar: truth, contentment and reflection.

2. daya, dharam, dan : compassion, righteousness and charity.

3. sidak, sabar, sanjam: faith, tolerance and restraint.

4. khima, garibi, seva : forgiveness, humility and service.

5. Love, knowledge (gyan) and work (krit).

Truth is known only after the experience and intuitional know- ledge of truth.² Truth should be imbibed by mind, speech and action. Truth should be reflected in one's thoughts and deeds.

"Speak the truth,

Realize Him within,

He is not far away,

See him intuitively."

Guru Nanak: Maru, p. 1026. To entertain truth within the heart is the essence of virtue. All other worship is hypocrisy.³ Contentment and reflection or understanding come along with truthful living.

"In the salver, place three mental pabulums: truth, contentment and understanding; add to it the ambrosia of divine Name; and with such a sustenance thou shalt be liberated."⁴ Conten-ment is to remain satisfied with what God has given and to completely overcome the desire and craving for more and more of everything. Vicara is right understanding. Even recitation of scriptures without understanding is said to be futile.

Compassion (daya) is based on the firm belief that the / Page 98 / light of God shines in every soul and that injury to an innocent human being is an injury to God. "Entertaining compassion for all living creatures, a man should die unto himself. In him understanding will shine into self.illumination."^l

Where there is compassion and understanding there is charity. There are people who give little of the much they have and give it for recognition. Their hidden desires make their charity unwholesome. On the other hand, there are those who have little and are ready to give all they cancto relieve the suffering of the people. They are believers in life and the bounty of life. Their coffers are never empty. Joy is the reward of those who give voluntarily and naturally. There are those who give charity as nature gives fragrance and sunshine. Through their eyes God smiles on earth and through their lips God speaks to humanity. As Bhai Mani Singh, the apostle of Guru Gobind Singh, puts it: "Any material help rendered out of vanity is no charity. It may be a good way of becoming popular. But real charity is to consider the sufferings of others as your own and doing your utmost to relieve them. A still higher charity is to impart intellectual knowledge and wisdom and remove the ignorance of the people. But the highest charity is the awakening of spiritual consciousness in a person and imparting the love of God."²

Sidak (deep faith) and sabar are two theological terms derived from the Koran. Sidak implies a faith that is imbued / Page 99 / with the spirit of self-consecration and dedication. Sabar implies firmness of purpose, constancy, steadfastness and patient perseverance. It is a cheerful attitude of resignation and understanding in sorrow.¹ Sanjam is self-restraint and self-control, not through penance but through a cautious self. possession and poise.²

Forgiveness and humility are the most important virtues in Sikh ethics. Anger subsides when there is forgiveness: "bidnse krodh khima gah lai," "Eat little, sleep little, and love compassion and forgiveness."3 "Learn three things,". said Guru Nanak to a disciple, "Be humble before everyone, be ever sweet of speech and forgive everybody. Thou shalt attain liberation.'" Humility is a source of moral courage and strength, Only a humble person can forgive and show fortitude and moral courage., "Forgive and ye shall be forgiven."⁵ Where there is forgiveness there is the light of God:

"Where there is knowledge,

There is righteousness:

Where there is falsehood,

There is sin;

Where there is greed,

There is death;

Where there is forgiveness,

There is God Himself."

Kabir: Adi Granth, p. 1372.

Notes to page 99

1. Adi Granth: Sheikh Farid, p, 1348,

2. Ibid, Swayyas, IV, 1397.

3. "alap ahur sulap si nindra daya khima tan prit"-Guru Gobind Singh.

4. Janam Sakhi Bhai Bala, Sakhi, 155.

Cf, "Learn to receive blows and forgive those who insult you," - Wisdom of Israel, p. 204.

Cf, "In Buddhism the ten pre-requisites for Buddhahood are: charity (dana) , fortitude (sil) , renunciation, wisdom, courage, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving kindness,and equanimity." Gunaratna Trera: The Dhamma, p. 54.

Cf, "Harmlessness, truth, absence of wrath, renunciation, peacefulness, absence of crookedness, compassion for living beings, uncovetous- ness, mildness, modesty, absence of fickleness, vigour, forgiveness, fortitude."."these are his who is born with divine properties," Gita: 11,3,

S. Luke: 6,37,

Notes to page 98

1. Siddha Gosht, 24.

2. Bhai Mani Singh: Bhagat Ratnavali, p. 56.

Cf "Render not your charity useless and vain by a show of generosity." (Koran 2 : 264). "I you publicise your charity it is well; but if ye hide it and give it to the poor, it will be better for you and will atone for some of your ill deeds." (Koran 2 : 271).

Cf. "By giving away our food we get more strength; by bestowing clothing on others, we gain more beauty; by donating abodes of purity and truth, we acquire great treasures. The charitable man has found the path of salvation."-Paul Carus: The Gospel of Buddha, p. 62.

Cf. "Charity is patient, is kind; charity does not envy, is not preten- tious, is not puffed up, is not self-seeking, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness but rejoices with truth. Charity never fails whereas prophecies will disappear. Aim at charity, yet strive after spiritual gifts." Corinthians 113, 14.

Notes to page 97

1. "sacon or e sabh ko, upar sac acar.'-Guru Nanak, Sri Rag, p. 62.

2. "sac mile sac upje sac mai sac sumae"-Guru Nanak: Sri Rag, p. 18.

3. "hirdai sac eh karni nai sar, hor sabh pakhand puja khuar", Guru Nanak: Prabhati, p. 1343.

4. Guru Arjan, Mudhavani, p. 1429.

Notes to page 96

1. Adi Granth : Nanak, p. 1012.. Asa, p. 351 ; Kabir, p. 325.

2. "sidh chhap baithe parbatin kaun jagat to par utara," Gurdas, p. 129.

Notes to page 95

L 1. Adi Granth : Kabir.

-.2. Ibid., Ravidas, p. 658.,1 '

Notes to page 94

1. "The path is narrow and sharp as a sword's edge". Guru Nanak : Maru. p. 1027.

"The path of Sikhism is narrow and sharp as a sword's edge." Bhai Gurdas, Var 11 : 5.

Cf. "Awake, arise, sharp as the edge of a razor, hard to cross, and difficult to tread is the path, so the sages declare." Katha Upanishad 1, 3, 14.

"Strive to enter in at the strait gate. for narrow is the gate and straitened the way that leads to life, and few be they that find it." Matthew, VII. 14.

 Notes to page 92

1. Adi Granth : Nanak I, Maru Solha, p. 1041, see also p. 695.

2. Ibid., p. 117 and p. 72.

3. Ibid., Suh1

Notes to page 91 

Cf. "There was neither what is, nor what is not, there was no sky, nor heaven which is beyond...There was no death...that One breathed by Itself without breath. Darkness there was, in the beginning all this was sea without Light:' Rig Veda, Nasadiya Sukta X, 129, 1.

Cf. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of waters. And God said, "Let there be Light, and there was light."

Cf. "It was not existent, not non-existent and non existent. From that emerged darkness, from darkness the subtle elements."

Sabala Upanishad, I. 1"

Page 87

"Leaving the fish-garbed figures, I came at last to the Gateway of the Sun, located in the north-west corner of the Kalasasaya.

It proved to be a freestanding monolith of grey-green andesite about 12 1/2 feet wide, 10 feet high and 18 inches thick, weighing an estimated 10 tons.¹⁴ Perhaps best envisaged as a sort of Arc de Triomphe, though on a much smaller scale, it looked in this setting like a door connecting two invisible dimensions - a door between nowhere and nothing. The stonework was of exceptionally high quality and authorities agreed that it was 'one of the archaeological wonders of the Americas'.¹⁵ Its most enigmatic feature was the so- called 'calendar frieze' carved into its eastern facade along the top of the portal.

At its centre, in an elevated position, this frieze was dominated by what scholars took to be another representation of Viracocha,¹⁶ but this time in his more terrifying aspect as the god-king who could call down fire from heaven. His gentle, fatherly side was still expressed: tears of compassion were running down his cheeks. But his face was set stern and hard, his tiara was regal and imposing, and in either hand he grasped a thunderbolt.¹⁷ In the interpretation given by Joseph Campbell, one of the twentieth century's best-known students of myth, 'The meaning is that the grace that pours into the universe / Page 88 / through the sun door is the same as the energy of the bolt that annihilates and is itself indestructible. . .'¹⁸

I turned my head to right and left, slowly studying the remainder of the frieze. It was a beautifully balanced piece of sculpture with three rows of eight figures, twenty-four in all, lined up on either side of the elevated central image. Many attempts, none of them particularly convincing, have been made to explain the assumed calendrical function of these figures.¹⁹ All that could really be said for sure was that they had a peculiar, bloodless, cartoonlike quality, and that there was something coldly mathematical, almost machinelike, about the way they seemed to march in regimented lines towards Viracocha. Some apparently wore bird masks, others had sharply pointed noses, and each had in his hand an implement of the type the high god was himself carrying.

The base of the frieze was filled with a design known as the 'Meander' - a geometrical series of step-pyramid forms set in a continuous line, and arranged alternately upside down and right side up, which was also thought to have had a calendrical function. On the third column from the right-hand side (and, more faintly, on the third column from the left-hand side too) I could make out a clear carving of an elephant's head, ears, tusks and trunk. This was unexpected since there are no elephants anywhere in the New World. There had been, however, in prehistoric times, as I was able to confirm much later. Particularly numerous in the southern Andes, until their sudden extinction around 10,000 BC,²⁰ had been the members of a species called Cuvieronius, an elephantlike proboscid complete with tusks and a trunk, uncannily similar in appearance to the 'elephants' of the Gateway of the Sun.²¹

I stepped forward a few paces to take a closer look at these elephants. Each turned out to be composed of the heads of two crested condors, placed throat to throat (the crests constituting the 'ears' and the upper part of the necks the 'tusks'). The creatures thus formed still looked like elephants to me, perhaps because a characteristic visual trick the sculptors of Tiahuanaco had employed again and again in their subtle and otherworldly art had been to use one thing to depict another. Thus an apparently human ear on an apparently human face might turn out to be a bird's wing. Likewise an ornate crown might be / Page 89 / composed of alternate fishes' and condors' heads, an eyebrow a bird's neck and head, the toe of a slipper an animal's head, and so on. Members of the elephant family formed out of condors' heads, therefore, need not necessarily be optical illusions; on the contrary, such inventive composites would be perfectly in keeping wth the overall artistic character of the frieze.

Among the riot of stylized animal figures carved into the Gateway of the Sun were a number of other extinct species as well. I knew from my research that one of these had been convincingly identified by several observers as Toxodon²² - a three-toed amphibious mammal about nine feet long and five feet high at the shoulder, resembling a short, stubby cross between a rhino and a hippo.²³ Like Cuvieronius, Toxodon had flourished in South America in the late Pliocene (1.6 million years ago) and had died out at the end of the Pleistocene, about 12,000 years ago!.

To my eye this looked like striking corroboration for the astro-archaeological evidence that dated Tiahuanaco to the end of the Pleistocene, and further undermined the orthodox historical chronol- ogy which made the city only 1500 years old, since Toxodon, presumably, could only have been modelled from life. It was therefore obviously a matter of some importance that no fewer that forty-six Toxodon heads had been carved into the frieze of the Gateway of the Sun¹⁵ Nor was this creature's ugly caricature confined only to the Gateway. On the contrary, Toxodon had been identified on numerous fragments of Tiahuanacan pottery. Even more convin- cingly, he had been portrayed in several pieces of sculpture which showed him in full three-dimensional glory¹⁶ Moreover representa- tions of other extinct species had been found: the species included Shelidoterium, a diurnal quadruped, and Macrauchenia, an animal somewhat larger than the modem horse, with distinctive three-toed feet ¹⁷

Such images meant that Tiahuanaco was a kind of picture-book from the past, a record of bizarre animals, now deader than the dodo, expressed in everlasting stone.

But the record-taking had come to an abrupt halt one day and' darkness had descended. This, too, was recorded in stone - the Gateway of the Sun, that surpassing work of art, had never been / Page 92 /completed."