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by Prof. C. Suriyakumaran

In an absorbing 3-part series of articles concluded just recently, Prof. Chandra Wickremasinghe expounds both on Christianity's earth-centered, and time bound, tenets of creation, and the Buddha's unfettered perceptions, of both space and time.

In parallel with the foregoing, he also discusses his view of the origin of life on earth as in the 'dusts' of the cosmos - the life matter of the countless debris in space. Perhaps so, save that the earth itself was such 'debris', and could well have, therefore, carried just the same life creating organisms, in storage as it were, that he attributes could have only come later from space.

But this it seems is not essential to his main, fluent exposition of the cosmos and its process, as noted above. It is on these latter thoughts, therefore, that the following are set down.

What Prof. Wickremasinghe has written, appropriately enough as Buddhistic thinking, is essentially part of the wider, even older inheritance, which must be understood as our common 'Indian heritage' (for want of another term) something which even 'Indo' Christians should be invited to consider themselves heir to.

In this heritage, what Prof. Wickremasinghe writes of are already deeply, and profoundly rooted.

Again for want of another term, called the 'Hindu' heritage, these common roots depend on whether we are talking of its Metaphysics, or of what I have called elsewhere, 'Social Hinduism'.

Many Buddhists are in fact active participants in the latter; and it is a pity that they have virtually isolated themselves from their metaphysical roots, that are the former. In these roots, the concepts of 'consciousness', cosmos, and its 'processes', find expression in thoughts and formulations - that are at the same time, powerful, clear and comprehensive.

For the Buddha, who at no time called for another 'religion' - "be a lamp unto yourself" - was as much heir to these traditions; and his search for himself was because of the depths to which 'Hinduism' itself had sunk - in vice, corruption, elitism, ritualism, and ignorance of itself. No teacher could give him the answers.

It is this, also, which accounted at that time for almost the whole of India becoming Buddhist (or Jain).

The reversion to Hinduism, years later, was again, in turn, due to the increasing sectarianism of Buddhism - within 100 years of the Buddha's death, there were already 18 rival sects.

The 'return' to Hinduism, led notably by Sankaracharya, this time also enabled return to 'the essential Hinduism', that is to its metaphysics and its deeper truths.

Both Hinduism and Buddhism being in spirit non-militant and, therefore, not proselitizing by violence, these exchanges of faith and belief between them, all took place in peace, as they did in later years, from Hinduism to Buddhism, in Indo-China, and Indonesia.

It is, therefore, natural that any expression of our common cosmic concepts, unlike in the West, should go back to an 'Indian tradition' as a whole, and not to any separately. It is a matter which Prof. Wickremasinghe has denied himself-perhaps also, given the way that our societies teach 'religion'.

My purpose here, therefore, is to complement the thoughts that Prof. Wickremasinghe has brought out, with their Hindu antecedents, describing the same questions on the cosmos, the real and unreal, and on living; and giving the answers to them, with a power, precision, clarity, and consciousness that are as remarkable, as they are inviting.

At that point, one seems drawn to state that: 'who is a genuine Buddhist is a genuine Hindu; and who is a genuine Hindu is a genuine Buddhist'. The outstanding source of Hindu metaphysics is, of course, the Vedas (in particular, the Upanishads), with the Gita later, rendering its Song of Universalism, and its teaching of 'Nishkama Karma'. How do these 'insights' into the 'Infinite' see 'Creation' and cosmos and life?

In this 'Metaphysics' the Supreme Consciousness - Infinite, beyond time and space - is 'Brahman', the ultimate reality, the eternal consciousness, the Universal Energy, 'God'; all only names, the product of our minds and, as names, immaterial what terms we use.

But 'Brahman' itself is of two aspects, as 'Nirguna' Brahman- 'consciousness' without form or limit, and beyond our 'finite' understanding; and as 'Saguna' Brahman - all those aspects of that 'consciousness', in 'materialised' form, as the cosmos, universe, earth, life.

These two are known, also as the two aspects, of 'being' (Nirgunan) and 'becoming' (Sagunan), both equally true, only different aspects of the same reality. Nor are these unique to 'Hinduism', or 'Buddhism'. They are equally captured in Islam, and its metaphysical flowering in Sufism - firstly, in its unequivocal, 'description' of 'Allah' as beyond description, much less any physical representation; and secondly, in its concept of creation as inherently of this indescribable reality (the 'Advaita' vedanta of the Indian heritage).

It is in the world of 'practice-the only 'religion' to which most of us pay obeisance that we so much live in ignorance, and generate conflict.

The 'process' by which, in 'Hindu' cosmology, consciousness manifests as 'becoming' (the 'universe' as we know) is encapsulated in three remarkable words, 'Shakti' - 'Anu' - and 'Shabdam'.

These are, the Eternal Energy source (Shakti); 'transmuting' as matter (Anu, a term only loosely translatable as 'atom', more truly that still undiscovered prime element, that 'moment of change' of non-matter into matter); by a process of what may, again, only poorly be translated as 'vibration' (Shabdam), or 'wave action'.

All originating, as we said, from the original 'consciousness' (Nirguna Brahman), they proceed in an endless pattern and sequence of 'creation, preservation and destruction', represented iconographically as 'Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva'.

A corollary of the foregoing is that the cosmos - and universe - are in continuous process of 'emanation, expansion, and contraction', each taking, aeons of time; ideas, all now familiar it seems to science.

Following from these then are also, that the earth is not the centre of the universe, nor our universe the centre of the cosmos, or the only one. At the level of life, all life is sacred, not only human, the 'Brahman' being of them all.

Drawing on the principle of 'energy' and 'matter', 'God' is not a 'he', or 'she, but 'Ardhavarishwara' - half male and half female; in our pantheon, with Shakti the energy principle as 'female', and Shiva, the 'matter' principle, as 'male'; the two together, being essential for our 'world' to exist.

All these together, being remarkable perceptions of reality, they would seem, also a far better basis for the cause of 'feminism' today, than much that we have with us.

Also following from the metaphysics we have described earlier, is that 'perception', as we normally know it, is merely 'sensory perception' - of the observed being equally conditioned by the observer (in which, say, we see the sky as 'blue', or 'God' as 'father', 'son', or 'lover', or 'child', and a thousand other forms) since that is what our senses, can 'show' us.

The contrary perception, of course, is of 'intuitive apprehension', of an inner consciousness, of the ancient metaphysics, as increasingly seen in modern science.

These distinctions, of Hindu-Buddhist thinking, between sensory perception and intuitive apprehension, therefore obviously have no place for a 'heaven' 'next door' to us somewhere above, or a 'hell' somewhere 'below'. They both lie in us, our 'release' from the 'sensory' to the 'intuitive' levels of being, in a 'merging' with the supreme consciousness. (For, 'tat tvam asi' - each ones' 'consciousness is but a 'spark' of the total consciousness - sons of god, indeed).

These lead to two essential truths of life - rejecting both 'elitism', and 'monopoly' of religion. The first is that all 'levels' of awareness of the Absolute are equally 'true'; and so, 'education' is no gateway to exclusiveness or superiority.

Thus, as the second, all forms of "search", If sincere, are real; and all 'paths' correct, "Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudda Vidanti". Some may choose pure Love (Bakthi Yoga); others, service though work; yet others, meditation (Gnana Yoga).

The five-fold path, and the eight precepts are a call to all, the simple and the sophisticated, the ignorant and the educated (as, indeed, are the Ten Commandments). We have thus, a much neglected common heritage, as Hindus and Buddhists.

However, we have, not surprisingly, only demonstrated this in our pursuits of the Vishnu, Pathini or Kataragama Devales, and 'devotions' at our select temples, with 'requests' for favours.

We have not, as yet, decided to see our other, much greater heritage, of our common view of the Infinite to which we all belong, and of the cosmos in which we move - ancient heralds of the evolving science that Prof. Wickremasinghe has so well described; and a beacon light to harmony and tolerance amongst peoples.

Perhaps, it is time that we worked towards these.

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