1) The Philosopher's Stone

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>From _Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism_ by Lama Anagarika Govinda

 

Part Two: 'MANI': The Path Of Unification And Of Inner Equality

 

1

'THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE' AND

'THE ELIXIR OF LIFE'

 

While mantric symbols have their origin within the cultural realm of a

certain language or civilization, there are other symbols of figurative and

conceptual nature, the origin of which cannot be traced to any particular

place, tribe, or race, and which are not bound to any particular period of

human civilization or to any religion, but which are the common property of

humanity. These symbols may disappear in one place - in fact, they may be

buried for centuries - only to reappear at another place, and to rise

resurrected in a new and more brilliant garb. They may change their names

and even their meaning, according to the emphasis laid upon the one or the

other of their aspects, without losing their original direction: because it

is in the nature of a symbol to be as manifold as the life from which it

grew, and yet to retain its character, its organic unity within the

diversity of its aspects.

The most popular of these symbols are those which assume visible form,

either as abstract (geometrical) figures or designs, or as objects of

religious cult. But there are also invisible symbols which exist only as

mental pictures, i.e., as ideas.

'The Philosopher's Stone' is one of these invisible symbols, and

perhaps one of the most interesting and mysterious, because it has given

rise to many visible symbols, great thoughts and discoveries in the realms

of philosophy and science. The eternal vision behind it, is that of the

prima materia, the original substance, the ultimate principle of the world.

According to this idea, all existing elements or phenomena are only

variations of the same force or substance, which can be restored to its

purity by reducing and dissolving the manifold qualities which have imposed

themselves upon it through differentiation and subsequent specialization.

Therefore, he who succeeds in penetrating to the purity of its

undifferentiated primordial form, has gained the key to the secret of all

creative power, which is based on the mutability of all elements and

phenomena.

This idea, which only yesterday was ridiculed by Western science as a

phantasmagoria of mediaeval thought, has today [1956] again become an

acceptable theory, borne out by recent discoveries in the realm of nuclear

physics. The repercussions of these discoveries already make themselves

felt in all branches of modern thought and have led to a new conception of

the universe.

From the beginning of human thought, the investigation into the

nature of the world started from two opposite ends; one was the exploration

of matter, the other the exploration of the human soul. Apparently these

were two absolutely different things; but they were not so different as

they may sound to us. It was not man alone who was thought of as being

gifted with soul forces, but matter as well (not to speak of plants and

animals). The belief in 'psychic' influences of precious and semi-precious

stones and metals survives to the present day.

It was therefore of secondary importance whether those forces were

pursued within the psychic realm of men or within the elements of nature,

of which man, after all, was only a part. In both cases the result would be

the same and would affect both sides. He who succeeded in discovering the

prima materia would have therewith not only solved the mystery of nature

and obtained power over the elements, but also found the elixir of life.

Because, having reduced matter to its origin, he could then produce

whatever he desired through the modification or addition of certain

qualities.

While the Greek, and later on the Arab and mediaeval alchemists of

Europe (to whom this science was transmitted by the Arabs), based their

theory of the transmutation of metals and other elements on this idea and

tried to prove it experimentally, there was a group of mystics in India who

applied this principle to their own spiritual development and declared that

he who could penetrate to the origin and ultimate principle of unity within

himself, would not only transform the elements of the external world, but

those of his own being. And in doing this, he would obtain that miraculous

power which in the Buddhist Scriptures has been called siddhi (Pali: iddhi;

Tibetan: grub-pa), a power that is equally effective in the spiritual as in

the material world. It is said, therefore, that highly advanced Yogins test

their attainments by exercising their powers of transmutation on material

elements.

Tibetan tradition has preserved for us the life-stories, legends and

teachings of a great number of mystics, who had obtained those miraculous

powers and who were therefore called 'Siddhas' (Tibetan: grub-thob,

pronounced 'dub-t'hob'). Their literary works and the records of their

lives were so thoroughly destroyed when the Mohammedans invaded India, that

only few traces of their activities have been preserved in Indian

literature. In Tibet, on the other hand, they are well known as the

'Eighty-four Siddhas'. Their works, however, as well as their biographies,

are written in a kind of symbolical language, which was known in India as

Sandhyabhasa. This Sanskrit term means literally 'twilight language' and

indicates that its words bear a double meaning, in accordance with whether

they are understood in their ordinary or in their mystic sense.

This symbolic language is not only a protection against the profanation

of the sacred through intellectual curiosity and misuse of yogic methods

and psychic forces by the ignorant or uninitiated, but has its origin

mainly in the fact that everyday language is incapable of expressing the

highest experiences of the spirit. The indescribable that can only be

understood by the initiate or the experiencer, can only be hinted at

through similies and paradoxes.

A similar attitude is to be found in Chinese Ch'an or Japanese Zen

Buddhism, whose spiritual and historical connexions with the Siddhas have

been pointed out by me in previous publications. Both these movements make

use of paradoxes and abound in descriptions of grotesque situations in

order to prevent the one-sidedness of purely intellectual explanations to

which even the most subtle parables and legends are exposed.

In the symbolic language of the Siddhas experiences of meditation are

transformed into external events, inner attainments into visible miracles

and similies into factual, quasi-historical events. If, for instance, it is

said of certain Siddhas that they stopped the sun and the moon in their

course, or that they crossed the Ganges by holding up its flow, then this

has nothing to do with the heavenly bodies or the sacred river of India,

but with the 'solar' and 'lunar' currents of psychic energy, and their

unification and sublimation in the body of the Yogin, etc. [This refers to

the solar and lunar currents of the "winds" or energies in the ida and

pingala nadis and their union in sushumna nadi and sublimation as the wind

rises through the higher centers. DF] In a similar way we have to

understand the alchemistic terminology of the Siddhas and their search for

the 'Philosopher's Stone' and the 'Elixir of Life'.