A review of: Orphism and the Initiatory Tradition (2003), Initiation into the Philosophy of Plato (2005), Parmenide’s On the Order of Nature - For a Philosophical Ascesis (2007), and The Science of Love: from the Desire of the Senses to the Intellect of Love (2010).
By Raphael (Ashram Vidya Order). Aurea Vidya Foundation, Inc. New York, N.Y. www.vidya-ashramvidyaorder.org
There is a growing interest – or more correctly, a need – in the Occident to understand the sacred origins of western philosophy. This assumes that there once was a sacred western esoteric tradition which has been lost, and it views ancient western philosophy as an expression of this lost wisdom, rather than as merely a precursor to modern thought. Giving expression to this view is Raphael, a writer, translator of traditional texts, teacher, and founder of the “Ashram Vidya Order”, who shares with us a vision of how the Orphic, Parmenidean, and Platonic Traditions represent a sacred legacy of our past, a key to enlightenment, and a complement to the eastern traditions that have nourished many of us.
For those of us who were born in the Occident and sought wisdom in the Orient it may now be time to also come home and to find in our own traditions the western version of the wisdom teachings that have provided answers to many of our questions. This “homecoming” could lead to an East-West understanding and synthesis that reveals the timeless, placeless and eternal reality underlying both – what in the East is called the “Santana Dharma” and what Raphael simply calls “The Tradition” or “The Doctrine”.
In these four books Raphael explains the importance of Orpheus, Parmenides, and Plato to western thought and presents them as living spiritual paths. Seeing them through the eyes of Raphael is to see these philosophers anew – as spiritual teachers revealing to us the architecture of reality and a valid spiritual path rather than as academic philosophers, as mythologists, political theorists, or logicians.
Perhaps, in this regard, we ourselves have been in a cave of sorts (as described in Plato’s Republic), but in this case it is a cave of the “shadows of Plato, Orpheus and Parmenides.” As academics and scholars have paraded their interpretations before us on the wall of the cave we have taken these “shadows” to be truth. Raphael comes to us from outside of the cave, as it were, transforming these understandings into a comprehensive, synthetic vision of our western progenitors that integrates and transforms these shadow interpretations into a vision that feels complete and which makes sense.
These four books provide an introduction to the doctrines and ideas of these great philosophers, revealing to us an ancient initiatory tradition at the heart of western philosophy and culture that still resonates today. How many of us know that doctrines such as reincarnation, the divine origin of the soul, the fact that life is meaningful and ordered, and sacred initiatory rites to reunite with divinity were known and practiced in ancient times not only in Egypt, South America and the East, but here in the West?
While Raphael is certainly not the first to offer a spiritual interpretation of these teachers, his gift is to offer an initiatic or “realizative” view of them that is based on personal experience and within a contemporary context that is accessible to the non-academic, drawing on modern scientific understanding, with references to other spiritual traditions.
In Initiation into the Philosophy of Plato Raphael cogently explains how Plato’s works constitute a spiritual path leading to knowledge of truth. Reading Plato in this way one can experience a knowledge that is cathartic and transformative. Much of the book consists of quotations from Plato’s dialogues skillfully arranged to illustrate Raphael’s points and to paint a picture of the whole of Plato’s thinking. Quotes from other religious and philosophic traditions – including the Kaballah, Old and New Testaments, Egyptian Mysteries, and Advaita Vedanta – demonstrate that Plato’s vision is not unique, but rather, a description of universal truth shared by the wise teachers of all ages and places. Raphael corrects popular misunderstandings of Plato (for example, that his teaching is dualistic and/or idealistic, or that the sense-world is unreal) and restores to their original meaning important Platonic terms, such as “dialetic,” “theory,” and the meaning of “philosophy” itself.
Platonic philosophy is a “love of wisdom” and in one of the final chapters Raphael gives us a beautiful presentation on the meaning of love. This subject – the spiritual meaning of love and that love itself can be a spiritual path and a means of transformation for an individual or a couple – is more fully discussed in a subsequent book “The Science of Love.” Here we learn that our conception of love is limited by our conception of who we are. Thus, experiencing ourselves as material-psychological beings reduces love to a physical or psychological phenomenon, when in reality we are divine Souls, with Love being the Soul’s desire to unite with its divine source. From this assumption is derived an inspiring conception of Love that offers the opportunity to view “being in Love” as a pathway for spiritual practice and transformation.
For each level of a being – material, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual – there is a corresponding understanding and definition of love. These forms of love should not be taken as ends in themselves, but as steps on an ascending ladder leading to a higher, more transformative love. Love presupposes polarities – both within and between individuals, and also within and between levels of reality – that are themselves derived from a fundamental unity. The process and dynamics of polarity, its relation to the system of chakras, and their connection to love in its many forms are clearly explained, with much helpful information about love for both individuals and couples. The resulting understanding allows us to see “beyond the form” into the deeper truth that express itself in everyday love relationships. In its highest expression Love, as an outflowing of Soul, is non-grasping, non-possessive, and un-needy, demonstrating qualities of comprehension, acceptance, life-giving, joy-beatitude, fullness, and appreciation. This deeper love creates a dynamic, creative field that benefits all who contact it. Quoting Raphael: “Love is, therefore, a powerful, unifying impulse, which transmits the grace of joy. Love floods and involves all it comes into contact with.” This “unifying impulse” can resolve life’s problems and lead the Soul back to its source. In its highest expression, Love is experienced as a gentle Sound, a vibrating of notes in harmony, transforming the space around it. Raphael comments: “If all the couples on Earth loved each other with sublime Mind, the planet would emanate a different beam of light and have a different rhythm: it would become a sacred planet.”
This understanding of Love is linked to the Platonic conception of Eros as a unifying, joining and aspiring energy. The Love-Eros in us seeks out Beauty in order to remember the Beauty that lies within, and these qualities (Love-Beauty-Eros) lead us back to their source where they become one.
In “Orpheus and the Initiatory Tradition” Raphael demonstrates how the spiritual culture that Plato inhabited was influenced by Orphism, contributing to a deeper understanding of Platonism and Neo-Platonism through an encounter with the ideas and practices that Plato himself experienced. Readers can also find useful information on topics such as: the nature and meaning of spiritual symbols, including the myths about Orpheus; the sacred use of music, for which Orpheus was legendary; the theme of realigning degraded traditions with their sacred impulse; the role of the Sage and tradition-founder; and the nature of the One-Truth underlying all sacred doctrines.
“On the Order of Nature” is a translation of a text by Parmenides which exists only in fragments and whose meaning and purpose has baffled many academic philosophers. According to Raphael, Parmenides provides us with an overview of a spiritual journey (i.e. an ascesis or sadhana), outlining the path and the goal, which is “Being” (the summum bonum of existence.) This small but pithy book contains an introduction to the text, interpretations of its two primary sections (concerned with “being” and “becoming”), and a translation (with English and Greek on facing pages) that includes copious footnotes. Raphael helps makes sense of Parmenides vision of “Being” as the ultimate principle and foundation of all things, and of “Becoming” (an appearance within being that is not separate from it) that is experienced as every-day reality. Our unhappiness is due to mistaking the effect for the cause (becoming for being), a mistake that constitutes a spiritual misunderstanding of profound significance.
The ills of modern society arise in part from this confusion and the lack of a shared vision of truth and the goal of life, as is provided in “On the Order of Nature.” This book is noteworthy for its clear exposition and explanation of the fragments, knitting them into a coherent whole, and for it ample use of quotations from both western and eastern sources that illustrate the meaning of the text.
In the past five years the Aurea Vidya Foundation has published twelve translations of Raphael from the original Italian – including sacred texts and commentaries on Advaita Vedanta and Yoga, and books about the sacred western traditions. In these books Raphael reminds us that at the core of our western philosophical tradition is an initiatory path of spiritual depth and wisdom. This places him in the company of contemporary teachers such as Paul Brunton, Anthony Damiani, Rene Guenon, Seyid Hussein Nasr and others whose writings reveal a sacred universal wisdom tradition with roots in the both East and West, offering the possibility of an East-West synthesis that reconciles modern scientific understanding with ancient wisdom teachings.
Review by Micha-El (Alan Berkowitz). May 2010
