Phiroz Mehta: Religion as a Roadmap for the Religious Life

By: Seyed Javad Meynagh

Abstract

The question of religion as a roadmap to an integral way of life is one of those perennial questions that currently have been lost within the academic social theory. In this brief essay we are looking at this transcendentally significant question based on Mehta’s philosophy by looking at the grammars of religious living in relation to the meaning of life.

Phiroz Mehta

Born of Parsi-Iranian Zarathushtrian parents, Phiroz Mehta (1902 – 1994) was educated at Royal College, Colombo, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences and History. Later he studied the piano under Solomon, giving recitals in India and Britain. He had many other interests; astronomy, poetry and philosophy. His interest since early boyhood in all the major religions of the world was not confined to a theoretical study. Deeply concerned with discovering through personal experience the Truth which is the Heart of Religion, he practiced in his own lifetime both the outer and the inner disciplines of several great religions.

During his lifetime he gave over three thousand lectures on religion and Indo-Iranian cultures to learned societies, university students, schools and conference centers in England, Holland, Germany, India and at his London home.

He was the author of Early Indian Religious Thought, The Heart of Religion, Zarathushtra: The Iranian Prophet - The Transcendental Vision, Buddhahood, Holistic Consciousness and The Oakroom Talks on Buddhism.

Phiroz Mehta always insisted that he was not to be regarded as a guru or as a leader of any movement but essentially as a fellow student. He regarded every person as being unique, discovering truth through his or her own way of life. His practical philosophy is a great translation of existential philosophy that is based on the idea of individual uniqueness. Phiroz exemplified the quest for meaning in his life as he thought is nothing but the complete expression of the Transcendence. His philosophy is not academic, namely being concerned with the technical aspects of philosophical analysis, which is divorced since the emergence of Enlightenment in Europe from the ideas of Holy and Transcendence. Additionally his thought is deeply religious meaning it is based on the marriage of thought and action in relation to the Holy. It is not a secular thought, which dwells upon the reality of God but it does not touch the vision of the one who studies this reality. On the contrary, from his earliest days Phiroz had a burning interest in discovering the fundamental meaning of life expressed in the texts of major world religions. Having been brought up in a Parsee family whose religion was Zarathushtrianism and having lived in a Hindu and Buddhist community and attended a Christian school, he was provided in his young life with many ethical questions to puzzle out. Eventually he read Natural Sciences and History at Trinity College, Cambridge, and then went on to write six authoritative books on religion and living the religious life, not only from the academic point of view but from the wisdom he had discovered in his sincere everyday living of the religious life right up to his death on 2nd May 1994. The very foundation of his thought, which is deeply existential, was not the idea of thinking about human existence but how to lead a religious life or how to live a religious life in a broad sense that could be epitomized in the interactions between the all-infinite and all-finite.

Phiroz Mehta on Questions of Existence

As Walter Kaufmann aptly put it, there is no single standard fashion to put the general themes of Existentialism as we have as many existential questions as we have existentially-conscious thinkers. (Kaufmann, 1956) Existentialism defined within the frame of European philosophy views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary and that cannot be reduced to or explained by a natural-scientific approach or any approach that attempts to detach itself from or rise above these underlying themes. It conceives of Being itself as something that can only be understood through and in relation to these basic characteristics of human existence. For existentialism within this frame of analysis, human beings can be understood only from the inside, in terms of their lived and experienced reality and dilemmas, not from the outside, in terms of a biological, psychological, or other scientific theory of human nature. It emphasizes action, freedom, and decision as fundamental to human existence and is fundamentally opposed to the rationalist tradition and to positivism. (Langford, 1986) That is, it argues against definitions of human beings either as primarily rational, knowing beings who relate to reality primarily as an object of knowledge or whose action can or ought to be regulated by rational principles, or as beings who can be defined in terms of their behavior as it looks to or is studied by others. More generally it rejects all of the Western rationalist definitions of Being in terms of a rational principle or essence or as the most general feature that all existing things share in common. Existentialism tends to view human beings as subjects in an indifferent, often ambiguous, and "absurd" universe in which meaning is not provided by either the natural order or God but rather can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by human beings' actions and interpretations. (Roberts, 1959) But existentialism in the intercivilizational sense of the term, which is used here could not be reduced to these concerns alone and additionally dismisses the idea of an absurd universe. On the contrary, the universe and the world are both full of meaningful signs for those who discern the underlying themes of reality and additionally one does not need to create meanings but reach to the level of higher consciousness that is the source of all meaning and that source in Phiroz’s philosophy is considered to be the Transcendence which happens to be the heart of religion too. (Mehta, 1987. p 389)

In other words, instead of focusing on Phiroz’s existential philosophy one could turn to the questions, which he saw deeply related to what we call human existence and worth thinking about and finding answers to them. Our life is always conditioned by the lack of what Phiroz considers to be the holistic consciousness but this lack is not unsurpassable. (Mehta, 1989. Chapter 6) We as humans are able to overcome our own conditioning if we reach to the level of Humanum. (Mehta, 1989. p 39)

We are used to think of humans as individuals who are prone to commit mistakes and when we are pushed to answer, we tend to think of this excuse, namely "Humanum est errare", it is human to err. But he thinks otherwise. In his view it is subhuman to err. We as we are, are still subhumans because the word human essentially means the Happy Creator. And who is regarded as the Happy Creator? We talk of God as being Creator and in bliss always. We, so argues Phiroz, are not blissful creators, unless and except when we possess some great artistic or scientific or philosophical gift and are able to produce that in perfection and present it to the world. Then we feel happy, we feel blissful, and as far as that goes the meaning of the word human as Blissful Creator is fulfilled. (Mehta, 1998)

A human existence is a fulfilled life but most of us are so conditioned that we know so much suffering. The subhuman existence is full of suffering and Phiroz approaches this question, which is at the heart of Buddhism with an unparalleled genius. He argues that Dukkha is the Pali word for suffering. The word dukkha is derived from du, meaning bad or spoilt, and kha. Kha comes in the Upaniẳadic writings also and stands for the Infinite and therefore the Eternal. The Infinite-Eternal spoilt is dukkha, suffering, sorrow, misery, grief, and all the rest of it. Since, we humans ordinarily are far from the Eternal we are in a state of suffering, even though outwardly we may experience so much pleasure, which we call happiness. Happiness, pleasure, joy, all these words have the same sort of meaning. But it is a happiness which is not permanent. It would be difficult to find even one hundred people in the world who enjoy a permanent peace of mind, a blissful state within themselves. There may be a few but only a very few, and there are more than five thousand millions of us on the globe nowadays. So now, what for us would be unconditioned is not by any means unconditioned for whatsoever Nature may bring forth that is more evolved, more developed, than us. We as compared with most of the animal species are certainly far more developed, and we can understand the meaning of our conditioning and deal with it. If we deal with it in the right way we are relatively unconditioned. (Mehta, 1998. pp 20-46)

In other words, the idea of human person is not a fixed or flat reality but a spiral-wise becoming that could get ever-more intensive depending on how close we are in terms of our consciousness or how deep we are in communion with reality through meditation and far from remorseful acts as Buddha says to bhikkhus.

In order to highlight his points about God, Man, Consciousness, Meaning, Existence and Authentic Life, he, unlike secular philosophers, takes ample examples from the sacred scriptures, which would enable him to highlight the nub of his rationale.

It is said in Genesis chapter 5 that Adam lived for so many years and he died. Then his son Seth lived so many years and he died, and so it goes on until it comes to the seventh name, Enoch. The name Enoch in Hebrew means tuition, intuition, the teacher. It is said that Enoch walked with God. How does a human being, the seventh in the line from Adam, walk with God? God has not got two legs to walk with! It means essentially that here was a man, Enoch, who, through living the religious life in the real sense, realized that state of Holistic Consciousness which enabled him to be in harmony with that which was Transcendent, the Transcendent possible for any human being. Other cases are Elijah, Elisha and so on. Here he is only talking of the Bible, but if you take the Upaniẳads, all the Hindu scriptures, the Buddhist teachings and so on, you will see that in the course of the last six thousand years at least there have been hundreds of truly spiritual people who have realized a peak point of human development and evolution, and have exemplified the true meaning of the word human. These were the Perfected Holy Ones, as they are quite rightly called. It does not say that Enoch died after so many years. "For Enoch was not for God took him". The ordinary man in the street may feel like being facetious and say, "Where did God take Enoch?" It simply means that in that state of Holistic Consciousness one experiences reality in a manner which is Transcendent to our experience here. That Transcendent experience of reality is

… of such a nature that it belongs to and can help others to be completely purified and thus realize what is possible for human beings at the present stage of evolution to realize. (Mehta, Recorded Talks)

Neanderthals never could have realized what has been realized during the last six thousand years. Proconsul and Australopithecus and all those creatures in central Africa were nowhere near this, they had just evolved out of the anthropoid ape stage, and they could not possibly realize such things. So, in Phiroz’s view, there has been

… a development which has culminated during the last six thousand years in the expressions which we find in scriptural writings. And they must not be taken as absolute truth, they are relative truth. They are good enough for us to go on with. (Mehta, Recorded Talks)

So the meaning of "for God took him" was that

… Enoch was capable of Holistic Consciousness and of staying in that consciousness as long as he wanted to stay in it. (ibid)

The Buddha for instance, speaking to some of the followers of the Jain teacher Māhāvira, says to them that

… he can enter that state and stay in that state without moving, without eating or drinking or sleeping for seven days and nights continuously. (ibid)

But he limits it to seven. We may ask, "Why does the Perfected Holy One, the Enlightened One, limit it to seven?" Simply because a physical body needs to have sustenance, it needs to assimilate, to eliminate, to rest and so on. It needs all those things, otherwise it would perish!

There is another statement. This comes in the Ằg-veda first and then in the Aitareya Upaniẳad. Vāmadeva, one of the Perfected Holy Ones, (he was a great teacher), "having ascended aloft from this world became immortal, yea, became immortal." The Ascension is ascribed to Jesus, as you know. "And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight." This cloud is really the Cloud of Unknowing. The phenomenon of Ascension has been known since Persian times. When the Holy One enters into the profoundest meditative state possible to human beings, constituted as we are at present, then in his consciousness he ascends into that state, which is, in Phiroz’s view, the ultimate state that the human organism can realize. That is what it means to exist in the fullest human sense of the term within the parameters of religious life. (Mehta, 1989)

Now, as regards Jesus and the cloud receiving him out of sight; this cloud really is, as Phiroz earlier said, the Cloud of Unknowing. Why does he call it the Cloud of Unknowing? When in the course of the religious life one is capable of entering into those profound contemplative or meditative states which ultimately transcend all expression in ordinary terms in our human life, then one knows in an un-knowing way, that is to say, un-knowing in terms of the activity of the brain. The brain does not know anything about it. It does not mean one is unconscious of it, but that of which one is conscious is so profound, so deep, so real, that there are no thoughts, no words which can express that. One will find this in the writings of all the great mystics of the world, the great mystics without exception, and there were many.

In order to highlight the question of human existence as he understands within the parameters of religious life he takes another example from the Bible. For instance,

Joseph and Moses see or speak with the Lord face to face. That is stated openly. But it is also stated openly in Genesis that no one can see the Lord or speak with the Lord and live. (Mehta, Recorded Talks)

That has been interpreted (and Phiroz would positively say misinterpreted) as meaning that if you see the Lord you will die.

No, Phiroz would argue. On the contrary he thinks you will be alive as no ordinary human being is alive, because to see the Lord face to face means that you are in the state of Holistic Consciousness which does not kill you, far from it. Speaking with the Lord means being at home yourself in the profoundest state of consciousness in terms of Infinity and Eternity. Now, so he argues, where

Infinity is concerned there is no here, no there, there is no this, no that, no up, no down, no forward, no backward and so on, no attaining, no achieving, because those things apply only to the personal, separate and isolative consciousness of the ordinary human being. (ibid)

And, as far as Eternity is concerned, Phiroz has this to say

… in Eternity there is no past, there is no present, there is no future. (ibid)

One may argue that Eternity is expressed in the Eternal Now. But the critic could raise another question by asking: what is the Eternal Now?

In Phiroz’s view, the Eternal Now

… is the resultant of the whole of what we call the past and also is interacting with the whole of the future in the immediate present. (ibid)

Along the way of presenting the ideas of Phiroz Mehta you may have rightly noticed that in the back of all his arguments and expositions the notion of God looms large and you may wonder what he thinks of God and if there is any relation between this holistic consciousness state and what the traditional religions call God.

In order to address this question within the frame of his philosophy we cannot do any better but see how he approaches aspects of what traditionally is considered to be theological questions such as God as an Omniscient. They have said in all the religions, Phiroz argues, "God is omniscient." What does this omniscience mean?

God is not a super encyclopedia! There is no such person, separate individual person, as God. There is a Transcendent Reality on which we must not plaster our limitations. (ibid)

This Eternal Now, as Phiroz Mehta says, is the resultant of the whole of the past evolved and the present right here at this very moment. That is what he calls the Now. But it also is all of the future expressed in the Now, because that which draws the past out and makes it evolve and grow is the future. You can see what the word prophecy means. It does not mean foretelling events to come. Sometimes you can foretell events to come if you are perceptive enough, and sensible enough, and knowledgeable enough. You can see obviously that this, that and the other is bound to happen, and so you can foretell something like that. But you cannot unfold the future at all. The future is not fixed, there is no such thing as predestination or predetermination of the future. Everything

… evolves and changes, and there is ample room because of elasticity, as a characteristic of the whole universe and universal process. There is room for elasticity and therefore for chance, and that is coming more and more into prominence through the work of modern scientists. (ibid)

So, there is this principle of uncertainty operating throughout the universal process. So,

Eternity holds the whole of the future, drawing the past all the time, beckoning to the past. Its manifestation takes place here and now. The here is an Infinity always. (ibid)

When he says Infinity, the natural tendency could be immediately to think in terms of bigness, hugeness; it's so big, so grand. What does Infinity mean? For him it means

… Not-finite. The finite is measurable, the Infinite is immeasurable. Your geometrical point, your true point, has no length, no breadth, no depth, it is immeasurable, it is In-finite. If the brain can free itself from its limitation of associating Infinity with hugeness, then you will find that your sense of proportion in all the practical, ordinary things of everyday life will be sensible, will be very different. You will find yourself much more happy, and, to use a common-or-garden word in the language, more successful. (ibid)

In expounding the question of Holistic Consciousness he turns to the story of the Mount of the Lord, and Jesus spending forty days and forty nights there. The Mount of the Lord of the Old Testament has, as Phiroz Mehta rightly points to, its counterpart in the Zarathushtrian Ushidaraena. Of course modern scholars give all sorts of wonderful explanations, geographical being one of them, and so forth, but he thinks you can put that in your pocket and forget all about it!

Ushidaraena refers

… to that state of Holistic Consciousness, the Mount of the Lord, the Hindu Mount Meru, the sahasrāra cakra of ku nd alini yoga, the Brahmaloka of Buddhist meditation. (ibid)

This is the Mount of the Lord. The Buddha and his great disciples can spend seven days and nights continuously in the deep communion called the cessation. You may wonder, the cessation of what?

It is the cessation of all perception and feeling at the subhuman level. That completely ceases, and when that completely ceases you will discover that the brain stops talking, not only whilst you are awake but in your sleep. If you look at your thought process, which is of course an activity of the brain, it is always chattering, and that chattering is centred round "I". You cannot watch your thought process for five minutes without saying "I" five hundred times! It is absolutely astonishing. It is the limiting process, and it is all about things worldly, things which tie you down and prevent you from developing within yourself. (ibid)

In Holistic Consciousness the brain

… stops talking, and when the brain stops talking, Mind in its purity, in its Transcendent reality functions through you. It functions through your brain, and it actually transforms physically some at least of the cells of the brain. This is being investigated now more and more of recent years. Therefore the disturbance which the brain normally causes in our ordinary, everyday life is at an end. (Mehta, 1989. p 40)

This is what religious living means for Mehta, namely to allow the Transcendence work through you. Rituals, prayers, genuflexions and all the gestures which are considered religious

… have a place in life for those whose temperament is such that it elevates them, it puts them into a sublime mood. But it is a temporary sublime mood, that is all, whereas, with the right way in which you develop your own power of attentiveness without reacting for or against anything (that is the whole secret of it), you will realize your true humanity. (1989. p 44)

Then it comes the very essential theme of existentialism, namely uniqueness. On this, Phiroz Mehta has his own unique religious approach that takes, first of all, Man as essentially a religious being and only secondarily a political, social, and economic animal. Each and every one of us is

… a unique person, there is no one else in the world like any and every one of us. And that applies to the whole world. One of our tasks in life is to realize that uniqueness, but realize it in a way that does not make us conceited. This is the important thing. If you feel conceit, then, you have not discovered your true uniqueness, because the countless uniquenesses of the whole universe are all embraced within the Supreme Uniqueness of the One Total Reality. So discover uniqueness in that way, and you will be in harmony with the entire universe. (Mehta, Recorded Talks)

And in that state of course, as he said earlier too, the brain has stopped talking, you are silent. In the silence the heart grows still with the touch of beauty, when self so surrenders that

… passion meets love as the river meets the sea, when the mind is so free of all images that Truth shines shadowless, or when the votive act flows into the heart of infinite grace, there are no gates to bar the way to your own fulfillment. (ibid)

The most significant of all questions in his philosophy of existence is how to become human, which is not ordinarily we mean by humanness. How to lead a life worthy of the name ‘human’ is one of the great riddles of all philosophy for Phiroz Mehta. He does not build any systematic theology or philosophical system but he attempts to convey one so delicate a message and that is one cannot live a human life, which for him is similar to say as a religious life, if one does not worry about one’s own true self. Don't worry about the world. That is the business of Transcendence. Your business is to be your own true self. This is where one can start to reassemble his alienated selves into one realized true self that is immortally beloved of Transcendence. The scope of existential philosophy in the hands of P. Mehta becomes so enlarged and profound that one cannot but think of both terms, i.e. Existence and Philosophy in their primal senses, which could only mean the journey of soul along the path of God-discovery, as deeply symbolized in the story of Joseph in the Well. This journey cannot be accomplished if we are not able to personify both love and understanding within our self. I conclude this essay by Mehta’s own word on love as the only path towards full consciousness:

For us who live as mortals there is only the way of Love and Understanding. Heart speaks to heart, noiselessly. Who loves, hears. Who listens, understands. Listen to the bird singing. It sings naturally. It does not fly to an avian conservatoire; it pays no fees to another bird - a Prima Donna among birds. It just sings; song happens out of it. It is like the new born baby, who just lives. It is that mysterious wonder, life, which makes the newborn grow. (Mehta, 1989. p 39)

References

Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, Penguin; 1956.

Langford, Peter. Modern philosophies of human nature: Their emergence from Christian thought. Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff; Hingham MA, USA: Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Academic, 1986.

Mehta, P. The Heart of Religion. Published by Element Books, 1987.

Mehta, P. Holistic Consciousness. Published by Element Books, 1989.

Mehta, P. The Oakroom Talks on Buddhism. The Phiroz Mehta Trust, 1998.

Mehta, P. Recorded Talks on Religion. http://www.pmt.org.uk/talks.asp

Roberts, David Everett. Existentialism and religious belief. Oxford U.P., Galaxy books, 1959.

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