Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

7

Judaism

What exactly did Mother mean by Théon's 'Jewish background? To understand it in some measure let us refresh our memory about Judaism.

Judaism is one of the oldest extant religions of mankind. The history of the Jews is one of strife and persecution. Judaism's main persecutors have been its two daughters: Christianity and Mohammedanism. These quarrelsome sisters do not forget to equally quarrel among themselves.

Concerning the persecution of the Jews, Sri Aurobindo spoke of a "Cabalistic prophecy," according to which "when the Jews will be persecuted and driven to Jerusalem, then the Golden Age shall come."

He also pointed out that "the contribution of the Jews towards the world's progress in every branch is remarkable." Indeed the Jewish race has produced

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not only prophets like Elijah or philosophers like Spinoza (1632-77), but also the greatest of our modern scientists, Albert Einstein (1879-1955), born one year after Mirra. Besides, my acquaintances of that race are all people of refinement.

Like the Hindu Puranas, the old Hebrew books such as the Talmud are full of parables and allegories. Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, similarly gives the account of the Creation, of the Deluge; and it has familiarized us with the story of Adam and Eve, and the cause of their fall from Paradise.

Noah was the tenth male descendant from Adam and the grandson of Methuselah — the grand old man who is said to have lived 969 years! The Great Flood, that historical cataclysm, occurred during Noah's time. He had received the divine command to build an Ark, in which he and his family and all animals in pairs escaped the Deluge - a striking similarity with the Indian Manu. Historians set the date somewhere around 3000 B.C. for this Deluge, which washed away the Indus Valley civilization and marked a break in the Mesopotamian.

We do not know how many marvellous civiliza-

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tions thus disappeared suddenly, leaving unrecorded in history their artistic achievements, their social and political organizations. And even their scientific achievements, as in the case of the lost Atlantis. History is full of shadows and lacunae, and maybe the sole traces left are "the most primitive races, who appear so very akin to animals that one wonders if there really is any difference!" as Mother said. A great big black hole gapes at us. Curiously enough, she even said, "We had wonderful civilizations like those that left a sort of occult memory, for example, of a continent joining India to Africa and of which no traces remain . . . unless some human races are the remnants of that civilization."

We said 'curiously enough' because was Mother referring to Lemuria or to Gondwanaland? But the megacontinent Gondwanaland, which, according to the theory of continental drift, once included Australia, India, Africa, South America and Antartica, drifted apart in the Jurassic (mid-Mesozoic) or some 180 million years ago; while the separation of peninsular India from Southern Africa, rifting Lemuria, an elongated land mass that formerly occupied the Indo-Madagascan

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area, is supposed to have occurred early in the Tertiary, which, say geologists, began 65 million years ago. In any case, they also say that 'man' appeared on earth only in the early Quaternary, that is, two or three million years ago.¹ So!!! Who really knows what happened? And when ? The paleontologists digging up fossils and taking their time about it? Or the occultists who are able to establish a direct contact with the region where earth's memories are recorded? We do not know. Will —can — some earth scientists enlighten us?

During our long digression the Flood waters must have receded. Let us then see how the Semitic peoples were faring in West Asia.

After the Deluge, many nomadic tribes roamed the West Asia region. Abram, of an Aramaean nomadic

1. And 'modern man,' according to archeologists, is supposed to have appeared some 40.000 years ago, which leaves very little time for the 'wonderful civilizations' mentioned by Mother or the 'previous cycle of civilisation' of which Sri Aurobindo saw a vestige in the first, so-called 'primitive' stage of our own cycle. However, recent archeological findings in Israel (reported in February 1988 in the science journal Nature) seem to indicate that the 'age' of modern man will have to be revised to about 100,000 years. This is still hardly enough, but archeology being itself relatively new-born, we can safely predict that it will go on pushing the date of modern man's appearance further back into the past.

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family, became its head on the death of his father. From Ur, the Chaldean capital, he led his kinsmen to the land of Canaan, Palestine. Coming as they did from the other side of the Euphrates, Abram and his household became known as 'Hebrews,' from a root meaning 'the other side.'

The Patriarch's name, Abram, was changed on his circumcision to Abraham, 'the father of many.' His grandson Jacob, after an experience of wrestling with an angel, was renamed 'Israel,' he who wrestles with God. Ultimately the descendants of the Abra-hamic family came to be known by this name. It was Jacob who was the progenitor of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Jacob's immediate descendants migrated to Egypt, where they fell on bad days. How Moses led the Exodus of the enslaved Hebrew tribes out of Egypt,¹ how he welded the various tribes into a confederation during their forty years of wandering, receiving on the

1. The Exodus is supposed to have begun in 1447 B.C., which would make Moses a contemporary of Sri Krishna. And peculiarly enough, just when Krishna led the exodus of his Yadava tribe from Mathura to Dwaraka, seemingly Moses did the same with the Jews in the Middle East.

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way the Ten Commandments on top of Mount Sinai —"And to think Moses climbed up there to hear that banality!" exclaimed Mother— how Joshua completed Moses' task of reaching the Promised Land, is doubtless among the best adventure stories to be found in the Old Testament. But the arrival in the Promised Land was by no means the end of the Israelites' tormented history, for they had to contend for long with hostile peoples and conditions. This eventually compelled the Twelve Tribes —ruled so far by 'judges' —to set up monarchy (around 1025 B.C.). The first chosen king, Saul, was followed by David and his son, Solomon. It was David who conquered Jerusalem and made it the national capital. And it was Solomon who built the first Temple there during his forty years' reign (971-931 B.C.). That glorious period was short-lived. For upon Solomon's death ten tribes seceded, formed the Kingdom of Israel which was conquered by the Assyrians (in 722 B.C.), and lost their identity. They are counted as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The other two formed the kingdom of Judah, which was conquered by the Chaldeans (in 586 B.C.) who started the Diaspora —the dispersion of the Jews from Palestine —which the

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Romans completed in the first century A.D.

The Hebrews were on the road again. They were to be hounded from place to place, fugitives from the very countries they had enriched. Theon too had to flee his native country as we have already seen.

Left with perhaps too little time for art and science, the Hebrew genius found its expression best in its philosophy and literature. The Old Testament is universally known; we have already mentioned the Talmud; and among scores of other works equally deserving of mention, we must single out the Zohar, which embodies the teaching of the Cabala. In the Cabala, whose constituent elements are mysticism and philosophy, is enshrined the Jewish mystic lore, striving to fathom the mysteries hidden behind every word and letter of the Holy Writ. 'Cabala' means 'tradition,' implying that the teaching was originally handed down orally from generation to generation. It is more than likely that much of the deep knowledge preserved in the Cabala came from the Hebrews' prolonged contact with ancient Egypt, and, to an even greater extent, Chaldea. But as is well known, oral tradition is always a light that obscures. This too was no exception. Received

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from the remote past, this Jewish mystic thought was committed as secret doctrine to a privileged few in the eleventh century. Theon did not always agree with the secrecy. He said one day, "We are working to de-occultize the occult."

Theon, the excellent gardener that he was, had culled many seeds from the Cabala and cross-fertilized them with others from various ancient traditions, such as the Vedas which he knew so well, to develop his Cosmic Tradition. For instance Théon's idea of the 'inner Divine,' which caused a revolution in young Mirra, is common to the Vedic system, which posits the heart as the chief centre of consciousness, and to the Cabala, which lays great stress on the Shekinah or the all-pervading Divine Presence in man and the universe, regarded as the key to man's mission of restoring the original harmony between man and God, or between Matter and the Divine —a sharp contrast to the transcendant and wrathful Yahveh!

The Hebrew word of four consonants, YHWH (he is that he is ), representing the incommunicable name of God, is termed Tetragrammaton. The name is uttered by the Jews "only once a year," said Mother,

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"on the Day of Atonement." Called Yom Kippur, it winds up the ten days of Penitence which begin with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah — which can mean 'the birthday of the world' or "when mankind passes in judgment before the heavenly throne."

It is therefore not surprising that the Hebrew race excelled as a law-giver— take Moses and his Ten 'Thou Shalt Nots'! Although for the Cabala the role of man on earth is "to renew the unimpeded flow of Divine Love," the watchword of exoteric Judaism is rather Justice. God, in it, is basically depicted as the Judge of mankind, and not its Lover as in Hinduism. Perhaps it was also against this sense of severity that Christ rebelled?

Christ? He brings us back to Mother and Theon. She said in a laughing voice, "He used to call Christ, 'that young man'!"

Vast as was Max Théon's reservoir of knowledge yet he knew God only as the Master of man ; I doubt he had any conception of God as man's 'infinite Lover' as said Sri Aurobindo. "Theon had no idea of the path of bhakti, none whatsoever," said Mother. "The idea of surrender to the Divine was absolutely alien to him. Yet

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he did have the idea of the Divine Presence, here in the heart centre, of the immanent Divine, and of union with That. And he said that it was by uniting with That and letting That transform the being that one could attain this divine creation and the earth's transformation."

Mirra dipped time and again in his wide and profound occult waters and came up with so many treasures! "Theon was the first to give me the idea that the earth is symbolic, representative —symbolic of universal action concentrated to allow the divine forces to incarnate and work concretely. I learned all this from him."

Theon was a great teacher, and he taught Mirra a multitude of things. But that Love Incarnate had to wait for her coming to India to learn what the Indians mean by bhakti, the dedicated love which is unafraid of even perpetual hell for the sake of the Beloved. I have often wondered if this concept is not uniquely Indian. The idea is best embodied in the story of Radha, the Milk-Maid, and Krishna, the Cowherd.

My story opens at a time when Sri Krishna was already an established leader of men. And like all

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leaders he too was not spared headaches. So, it is no wonder that once, when Narada called on him in Dwaraka, he found Krishna lying with his eyes closed and a face dulled by pain. Narada, who was more accustomed to seeing a scintillating Krishna, was worried.

"What ails thee, Lord?" he inquired.

"I have a bad headache, Narada," answered Sri Krishna.

"Lord," asked Narada, "what can be done to cure thy headache?"

"If you can procure some dust from the feet of a human or a god, and apply it on my head, then only will my headache get cured," informed Narayana.

"I shall try, my Lord," said Narada, "and see whether I can succeed or not."

It did not occur to Narada, who always boasted of his own devotion to Krishna, to there and then take some dust from his own feet and apply it on the head of his worshipped One. No.

At any rate, he who "stands for the expression of Divine love and knowledge" was willing enough to take the trouble of travelling the two worlds for Narayana's sake. First he went to the abode of the

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gods, explained to them the situation, and asked if any one among them was ready to comply with his request. The gods were scandalized. "How can it be, Narada?" said all the denizens of heaven. "Dust from our feet on Narayana's head? What a great sin! Why, it will mean eternal sojourn in hell! Don't you know it?" One and all, the gods declined.

So then the demigod Narada descended from gods' heaven to men's earth. He landed in Brindaban, for he knew the genuine love of the Gopis for their Playmate. Bethinking himself of Radha, he went straight to her. He made no attempt to hide anything from her and spoke about the failure of his mission to gods.

Radhika listened silently to his tale. Then she asked,

"Is it absolutely certain, O Debarshi, that foot-dust will cure Govinda's headache?"

"Yes, Radha, that is certain," Narada assured her. "But if you give it you will have to sojourn in hell for eternity."

"Well, I am ready," replied the Milk-Maid. "What does it really matter —even if it means living eternally in hell —if his headache is cured ?''

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