THE AGE-OLD DILEMMA

The ancients drew a sharp distinction between those who were enlightened and those who were not. Whereas the enlightened mind has the ability to experience directly both the hidden reality of the Logos and the empirical reality of the Cosmos, the unenlightened mind is left with the empirical experience of the Cosmos alone.

Those who are unenlightened have no recourse except either to accept or reject the teachings of the enlightened sages on the basis of faith or belief. They have no way to confirm teachings on the basis of direct intuitive experience. This has been the age-old dilemma faced by sages throughout history: How do we convey the truth about the hidden, nonlocal reality of the universe to those who have no direct experience of that reality?

Like the people in Plato’s cave, it is not easy for us to accept the notion that the concrete and tangible world that we perceive around us is but a shadow of reality. We see the world around us as very real, and no philosophical or theoretical arguments are likely to convince us otherwise. The sages concluded that ultimately, it was a waste of time to try to teach their “science” to the unenlightened. Rather, they provided various childlike, colorful stories in which the deeper scientific principles were personified and explained through the characters of gods and mythical individuals. The real science hidden behind the myths was reserved for those who attained enlightenment and who therefore had an experiential basis for understanding the teachings. In this way, the ancient spiritual science evolved into an initiatory tradition in which initiates were given knowledge in accordance with their experience. These initiates were classified into two groups:

· Those who were still striving to become enlightened

· Those who were already enlightened

Yet even among the enlightened, there were various degrees of enlightenment. Some enlightened individuals were viewed as masters.