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Library Thieves
 Raimon Panikkar
ECOSOPHY, THE WISDOM OF
THE EARTH

Edited by
Milena Carrara Pavan

Translation by
Dario Rivarossa
 Ecosophy, or the cosmotheandric relationship with Nature
translation of the original German text:
"Ökosophie, oder: der kosmotheandrische Umgang mit der Natur",
in Kessler H., Ökologisches Weltethos im Dialog
der Kulturen und Religionen, Darmstadt
(Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), pp. 58-66

Ecosophy: an Intercultural Reflection

translation from English of an unpublished
text: Ecosophy, an Interculture Reflexion

Translation by
Dario Rivarossa

© Fundació Vivarium Raimon Panikkar, Tavertet

© 2015
Editoriale Jaca Book SpA, Milan
for the Italian edition

First Italian edition

May 2015

Cover and graphics

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 INDEX

Preface

Part one
ECOSOPHY, OR THE COSMOTHEANDRIC RELATIONSHIP WITH
NATURE

Part Two
ECOSOPHY: AN INTERCULTURAL REFLECTION
 PREFACE

This short text is part of a series whose publication accompanies the

release of the volumes of Raimon Panikkar's Opera Omnia.
At the beginning of the editorial planning of the Opera Omnia, it was
thought, with Panikkar himself, to group these texts into a single appendix
volume (Miscellanea). For now they are published separately, sometimes
enriching them with writings that complement their subject matter, so that
they may be more accessible to the reader interested in the specific topic.
These are prologues, debates, exchanges of correspondence, interviews,
sometimes simple conversations, reflecting the dialogue established by the
author with certain personalities of his time, on topics ranging from
philosophy (M. Heidegger, E. Severino), religion (P. Lapide), spirituality
(Henri Le Saux, Angela Volpini), the existential vision in East and West or
the conception of Time (O. Paz) and others.

In the following text, dedicated to ecosophy, to that wisdom of the Earth

that man has unfortunately forgotten to listen to, Panikkar offers a
comprehensive intercultural-hermeneutic framework for the establishment
of balanced relationships between the self and Nature. Today, the danger
comes not from the gods nor from Nature, but from an out-of-control 'art-
made' world that has unbalanced the whole of Nature. To a greater extent
than at any time in the past, different cultures absolutely need each other.
No culture alone - and religions, philosophies, natural sciences are cultural
phenomena - can claim to provide the answer to the problems of existence.
Not that there are cultural universals, but there are basic anthropological
constants and homeomorphic visions of reality. In its totality, Reality
presents itself in three mutually irreducible dimensions, but each of which
presupposes the other: they are indicated by the terms Cosmos
(matter/energy, Mitwelt i.e. co-world), Man (consciousness, I/self), God
(abyss
unfathomable, energy, inaccessible mystery). What, then, is the value of
this cosmotheandric insight into our relationship with Nature, based on the
perception of Reality as a whole and in its parts, which draws on the
wisdom of all ages and cultures?
In the first part, the author aims to answer this question by developing
nine theses; in the second part, he offers a cross-cultural reflection on the
current condition - political, scientific and philosophical - in the light of
different Eastern and Western traditions.
ECOSOPHY, THE WISDOM OF THE
EARTH
 Part One
ECOSOPHY, OR THE
RELATIONSHIP
COSMOTHEANDRIC WITH NATUR A*

* The text offers, in the form of short theses, a summary of the lecture given by Panikkar on 2 June
1993 as part of the cycle 'Natur neu denken' (Rethinking Nature in a New Way) organised by
P.V. Dias and H. Kessler at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. A few days later, Panikkar chaired a
colloquium on the theme of the conference together with participants in the research project 'Secular
ecological ethics (Weltethos: specific German term) in dialogue with cultures and religions'. [ed.]
 By 'ecosophy' I do not mean a revised, corrected, or more refined
ecology. The Industrial Revolution had a very clear idea (logos) of the
world, humanity's habitat (oikos), and intended to use the Earth in the best
possible way, i.e. in the service of Man, 'king of creation and lord of the
Earth'. And, broadly speaking, current ecology has by no means renounced
this idea. It has only modified it a little, in the wake of the bitter discovery
that, if we want to continue to benefit from the Earth, we must treat it
better, with more kindness, so that it can continue to offer us its fruits for a
long time to come.
'Ecosophy', conversely, is a new word to express an ancient wisdom. It
expresses the very traditional understanding that the Earth is a living thing,
both in its parts and as a whole. The issue here is not just about whether it is
permissible to kill animals as 'useful' for human sustenance. At the heart of
the debate here is our overall way of relating to matter and the physical-
sensible world, whose names (physis, nature, bhūmi) already reveal in their
etymology that our world procreates, is something living. 'Ecosophy' means
wisdom of the Earth. The Earth is not merely a provider of raw materials for
humanity; it is more than the stage or habitat of Man. It is the outer body of
Man himself, his living space, his home. Even more: it is one of the three
constituent elements of the whole (cosmotheandric) Reality, together with
Man and Godhead.
'Ecosophy' means the wisdom of those who know how to listen to the
Earth and act accordingly. Has not homo technologicus lost contact with the
rhythms of Nature? Has technocracy not imposed its own order on the
body, on the mind, on society? An artificial order that, to say the least, no
longer has anything to do with that of natural rhythms - with the ta, dharma,
taxis, ordo of ancient traditions. We must rediscover the rhythms of Life,
which are ultimately those of Being.
I will now attempt to formulate and develop nine theses from a cross-
cultural perspective. Culture is the mythos1 that provides the overall horizon
within which, and from which, we experience reality. Every culture,
however, is particular; hence every discourse on Earth (i.e. Nature) must
become a cross-cultural discourse.
 1. The current crisis reflects the failure of our basic cultural
statements

They do not provide a foundation for human life, nor do they know how
to hold humanity together. This is by no means simply, a crisis of
philosophical principles or reason. Rather, the crisis hinges on the fact that
the world, humanity, no longer has as its glue three 'utterances' that had
been in place for at least six millennia. What are they? Until recently, all
civilisations lived in a three-tiered world:
a) the world of the gods: one had to know how to treat them, and be able
to distinguish which were dangerous and which were not (sacrifice,
obedience, worship);
b) the world of Man: dealing with one's fellows, and in particular with
the powerful, required a true art. A large part of education consisted in
learning how to handle interpersonal relationships (grammar, rhetoric,
logic, etc.);
c) the world of Nature: to be experienced, to be known, to be used
(arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, etc.).
Three worlds that have now almost vanished. At most, they appear as
elements of other systems. That is why the basic fundamental statements
have sunk into the current crisis. We have set the stage for a fourth world, a
world that offers no basis or foundation, a world that is increasingly
artificial. We live in a fourth world dominated by mega-machines of our
own making... but we are - perhaps - beginning to realise that our creature
has made itself independent of us, and is now dictating to us. A
psychological pressure greater than that exerted by the gods, the king, and
even Nature.
But I would like to emphasise this: the ecological crisis is a revelation. If
one does not perceive it as a revelation, then one does not perceive it
seriously and deeply enough. Clearly, it is not a theophany: to reveal itself
is not a new God. Neither is it an anthropophany as occurred during the
Enlightenment, which offered us a new image of Man. So we are facing a
cosmo-phany: the cosmos, hitherto silent, now cries out and speaks. It is the
revelation of our times, and it is a revelation of precariousness. It is not a
matter of giving birth to an ecological religion, but it is religion that must
become ecological. A fundamental distinction.
 2. Only a transformation can save us

A few minor changes to the current parameters will certainly not lead us
out of the cul-de-sac; neither will a simple reform, which would only
prolong the agony of a system condemned to death. Nor a revolution,
because distortions and violence only produce equal and opposite reactions.
Rather, what is needed is a metamorphosis, a transformation. Which implies
experiencing the self and Nature in a transformed way, not simply
interpreting Nature in some new way. The problem is neither ecological nor
economic nor political. The problem includes all these aspects, but our
crisis is far deeper than a crisis that can only be solved by new technologies,
or by taking new measures, however important.
At root, this crisis is a matter of life and death for humanity. This makes
it a religious, metaphysical phenomenon. To recognise it, however, we need
tranquillity (i.e. serenity), empathy (i.e. commitment), distance (i.e.
interculturality), 'contempl-action' (i.e. synthesis of practice and theory).
Only a metamorphosis can save us.

3. This transformation is the cosmotheandric experience

That is to say, Reality is Trinitarian. First of all it is divine: I use the

adjective
"divine" as a synonym for "free, infinite", in the sense of "mystery", i.e.
something that is neither susceptible to manipulation nor permeable to the
intellect. Another dimension is the human dimension: I regard intelligence
in the global sense, in all its breadth and wisdom, as a specific characteristic
of Man. Finally, cosmic, i.e. material.
Reality is not only divine nor only human nor only material.
Consequently, it is neither theo-centric nor anthropo-centric nor cosmo-
centric. That is why neither monotheism nor humanism nor materialism is
the exhaustive answer to the current crisis. Over the past six thousand years,
we have accumulated sufficient experience in all these possible dimensions
of reality; now there is a need for a new global perspective on reality, one
that does not neglect any of these dimensions. There is a need for a new,
different unification that guarantees both an undivided unity and the
differentiated multiplicity of each being. Thanks to a cosmotheandric
intuition, reality can be read as a text in which the three dimensions,
cosmic, divine and human, intertwine. This intuition unifies all
the energies of the universe, from the electromagnetic one, through the
human-personal one, to the divine one. The cosmotheandric vision requires
the in-depth discovery of a way of life that is not primarily or exclusively
future-oriented, but open to the mystical experience that lives totally in the
present 2.

4. Real Nature is not an object

Nature is not an object at Man's disposal. Nature as an object of thought

cannot be anything other than an abstraction, a mental construction; it does
not coincide with real Nature. Thought based on subject/object certainly has
its necessity and validity, but it is not - in itself - methodologically the most
suitable for knowledge of Nature. If by science we mean objective science,
then strictly speaking there can be no natural science, but only a science
that studies the behaviour of observable processes.
However, today's dominant thinking is conditioned by so-called natural
science. What has determined the genius and greatness of Western
civilisation since the time of the Greeks is the ability to classify. It is
enough to pick up any scientific or sociological textbook to find parades of
subdivisions and tables: once classification is removed, only chaos remains.
But there are two elements that, as a matter of principle, cannot be made
part of a classification. The first is the very criterion by which it is
conducted. A criterion is always something very practical, and risky. If the
criterion is mountainous conformation, then Tibet and Switzerland fall into
the same category; not so if the criterion is GDP...
The second unclassifiable element - and this is the point that is close to
my heart - is the classifier itself. I, the human being who performs the
classification, cannot be constrained within it. If one then wants to classify
Man at all costs, then one loses his humanity and dignity, what Man really
is. If I allow myself to be pigeonholed into a classification, what happens to
my dignity, my self-awareness, my freedom? Each one of us is
unclassifiable! Every single piece of us can be classified: our DNA, our
blood, anything except the core of what I am. Within a classificatory
system,
the real Man vanishes. An object of thought is only an abstraction; an object
of will is only a psychological projection.
Surely ecologists do not want to tame Nature with thought, just like the
technocrats who try to exploit it? This is an attitude that, polemically, I have
called 'hunting epistemology': you have to identify with the subject, and
everything else becomes an object. You have to conduct as accurate an
analysis as possible, and then set out on the hunt for a particular target.
Once you find it, you can pull the trigger, open fire and hit the target. Then
you can draw your own conclusions - and perhaps complain about the
widespread violence.
In general, we are taught to use reason as if it were a weapon: to prove
ourselves right, to convince others, to dominate them. Perhaps it is precisely
this function of reason as a weapon that lies at the root of everything that
harms and afflicts us. The true nature of rationality is not to procure victory.
It is important to beware of the corrosive power of abstract thought. If you
think about something, if you process it deeper and deeper with thought,
that thing disappears. The subject/object model of thought is not reliable for
solving the problem of our relationship with Nature.

5. The categories of natural science are inadequate to relate to Nature

They are useful categories for many purposes - I am not at all against
natural science: they have their role. But not here, because the categories of
natural science are inadequate for an authentic knowledge of Nature, where
'knowledge' means much more than knowledge about the various
behaviours of observable processes.
Modern natural science can do no more than conceive of Nature as
something objective and measurable. Ultimately, it presupposes a
mechanistic image of the world. It is a mono-cultural attitude that can only
be universalised by getting rid of all other cultures. This may be the fate of
our planet, but in the meantime, this natural science is neither universally
accepted nor universal. It inherently belongs to a particular culture, which
certainly contains its share of truth. If, however, we only tolerate other
cultures for
sentimental reasons, then we might as well lock them all in a museum and
let them die out.
Culture is not folklore. Every culture has its own specific uniqueness,
and is a whole in which politics, religion and economics have their place.
Natural science is only able to predict the behaviour of Nature insofar as
it has performed measurements on it and derived patterns of behaviour from
them. In order to clarify the differences between this and other cultures, let
us look at three metaphors - without going into the question of their validity
- that different cultures have considered basic for their interpretation of
reality.
1) In the beginning was the big bang, an explosion of energy; a statement
that only makes sense within a mechanistic image of the universe.
2) In the beginning was the cosmic egg (hira yagarbha, Anaximander
and others); which is only plausible if one imagines the world as living, the
universe as animate (see the doctrine of the anima mundi).
3) In the beginning was the Word, the Word (the Vedas had already
stated this eight centuries before the Gospel of John); plausible only in the
hypothesis of a living, intelligent universe; otherwise it is an absurd
statement.
Each of these three fundamental metaphors is only plausible within its
own specific worldview. If Nature is more than an immense machine, then
natural science does not have the competence to make it known to us.

6. To know Nature is to become aware of our cosmotheandric co-

belonging

Authentic knowledge demands the transformation of the knower into the

known. Authentic knowledge is impossible without love. Human nature is
cultural; and knowledge is the typically human way of being natural, that is,
of realising ourselves. The goal is to be Nature; not to dominate Nature, but
to transform ourselves into it. In French, connaissance = naître ensemble
(knowledge as 'being born together').
Just in the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung there is an advertisement
proclaiming: 'We don't have to love nuclear power'. Therein lies the
problem! We are expected to live together with something that does not
we love. This is our fate today: having to live with many things we do not
feel we love. (Fire is also dangerous, but we love it, it is worthy of love).
It is not a question of vague romantic notions of Nature. Not at all. Nor is
it a matter of seeing ourselves as purely natural, undifferentiated beings,
because human nature is precisely culture, which implies
"cultivation'. To cultivate means to care, to make more beautiful, to bring to
perfection, not through possession and domination but through lovingly
shaping the work of the Creator, and cherishing it in the very act of shaping
it. It is an entirely different attitude.

7. The art (techne) of caring for Nature is called Ecosophy

'Ecosophy' not in the sense of our know-how about the Earth or matter,
but in the sense of the subjective genitive: the wisdom of the Earth itself, a
wisdom that we must recognise and make our own. This is the symbiosis
with Nature, in which everyone finds his or her own role.
But we are now living in a state of war with Nature, against Nature, and
in the past believing ourselves to be the victors: maîtres et possesseurs de la
nature (masters and masters of Nature, according to Descartes); 'dissecting
Nature', i.e. dissecting it (as Galileo said). Meanwhile, we are beginning to
realise that we are the losers. A few years ago a symposium was held in
Assisi on the theme 'The Earth cannot wait'; my talk was entitled 'The Earth
can; men cannot not'.3. Ecology in the usual sense is a simple armistice:
treat Nature a little better, so that she will continue to serve and benefit us
for a long time to come. But this is not enough.
Recognising the wisdom of Nature is the natural work of Man. Man in
theory constitutes precisely the wise part of Nature. So, no romantic
fantasies. If we are what we are, we are the knowers of Nature; as long as
we do not try to rape it and reduce it to an object. We come from Nature,
we live immersed in it, we are with it and even above it, because we are not
just Nature. We are the knowers of Nature, able to know everything that
takes place in it and to establish with it a symbiosis that makes life possible
for us all.
 8. Nature is our third body

My first body is the one before my eyes. The second is humanity (Corpus
Christi, dharmakāya, buddhakāya, the body of mankind). It is a powerful
intuition of almost all peoples, that humanity is one family, constitutes one
body, and that body is alive. Our third body is the Earth, Nature. We are the
Earth, we do not simply live on it for our own use.
We must therefore treat Nature as we do our first body: without
dominating it or being dominated by it. With friendship, mutual trust,
balance. Hence a text from the Upani ad4 states: 'He who lives on the earth
but distinct from the earth, he whom the earth does not know, he whose
body is earth and who moves the earth from within, that is your ātman, who
acts (guides) within, the immortal'. An insight 3,500 years old; and I could
cite many other such traditions. All aiming at transformation. We are earth
(p thivī), it is our body (śarira) and we are even more: its soul.

9. However painful it may initially be, 'emancipation' from technocracy is

the liberating task of our time

The task is as much political as it is spiritual: a liberation from

technocentrism, so as to become truly free. The cosmotheandric perspective
envisages this new basic attitude, with a view to peaceful coexistence in and
with this world. To this end, here are some points of approach:
1) Man's liberation from the straitjacket of technocracy can come through
art, technē, not the machine. In general, our means of emancipation today
are mechanical instruments; but the emancipation of humanity comes
through humanity, not through the machine. I would like to emphasise this
explicitly: I am in no way opposed to instrumentation (technology of the
first degree) which, as it were, constitutes appendages of the Human.
Indeed, where have the real
'engineers', able to invent techniques that extend - not supplant - Man and
Human?
2) The distinction between work (activity) and labour, between labour and
work. Work implies a performance of energies and talents for a task
which does not affect us directly, and in return for which we get money,
which is something that can be exchanged for anything else. In a society
that thinks of developing human creative potential in this way, it is hardly
surprising that 30 million soldiers are needed. A human being needs to 'do',
to produce, to be active, but this must result in a creative work, not in a
service rendered to a mega-machine.
3) Again on the primacy of art, understood as Aristotelian poiēsis as
distinct from praxis: we should always perform activities that give us joy,
satisfaction, a sense of self-fulfilment. An anecdote: in Mexico City's main
square, Zócalo, twenty years ago a Spaniard (for once the protagonist is not
the usual North American) noticed a craftsman intent on building and
painting chairs in typical Mexican style. Since he is furnishing his house, he
asks the artisan:
"How much do you sell them for?"
"Ten pesos," replied the other.
"Then I want six, all identical to this one. Make it 50 pesos'.
'No,' replied the craftsman. - Make it 75'.
"You ignorant piece of shit! You have never seen 50 pesos at one time,
you don't even know what they are worth. I will give you 50 pesos for the six
chairs, other than 75'.
'Not at all,' replies the craftsman. - Seventy-five or nothing'.
"Then let's make it 60 or nothing.
"I said 75.
"Will you at least explain to me why this figure, if 6 times 10 is 60?"
"Why? It's extra to pay me back for the boredom of making them all the
same."

We humans now behave like machines. Our humanity has been

mechanised. To say that '6 times 10 is 60' is fine for a computer, but not
necessarily for us.
Ecosophy, the wisdom of the Earth, as well as a space open to
alternative, always provisional visions. All this requires trust. There is no
alternative, but rather an opportunity for a space open to provisional,
differentiated, decentralised alternatives: the wisdoms of the Prussians and
Bavarians, Africans and whatnot...
In a word, metanoia. But metanoia implies three things; two of which are
all too well known. Firstly, repentance and guilt. The second aspect is
conversion, i.e. a transformation of the
mentality. As for the third, metanoia does not only mean a different way of
thinking, but also the discovery, spiritually and intellectually, that we are
not thinking machines, nor even just thinking creatures, but more (not less)
than that! Such re-thinking demands that we think together about ourselves
and Nature, whose destinies we share.

1 As always, Panikkar uses the term mythos in the broad, transcendental sense of paradigm and
horizon of experience. [ed.]
2 Cf. R. Panikkar, La dimora della sggezza, in Vol. I, tome 2, Opera Omnia, Jaca Book, Milan 2011.
3 Cf. R. Panikkar, Ecosophy: The New Wisdom. For a Spirituality of the Earth, Assisi 1993.
4 B hadāra yaka-upani ad III, 3.7.
 Part Two ECOSOPHICS:
A REFLECTION
INTERCULTURAL AND*

* Translation from English of an unpublished text: Ecosophy, an Interculture Reflexion.

 "Truth, Order, Consecration,
Ardour, Word, Sacrifice
preserve the Earth;
May she, the Lady who
governs what has been and what will
be, radiate for us a wide dominion.

Bhūmi-sūkta1

The Earth, bhūmi, the ground and support of all that has come into being,
is in turn nurtured and supported by six pillars. The Earth is nourished and
sustained by Truth (satya) Order (ta), Consecration (dīk ā), Ardour (tapas),
Word (brahman) and Sacrifice (yajña). The Earth is not inert matter, nor is
it just a planet or a mere celestial body. The Earth is Mother Nature, it is
'she' who came into being (Greek γιγνομαι, Latin fieri) and, according to the
Vedic idea of reality, is the fruit of these six principles.
Our technocratic dominant culture has not only changed our lifestyles but
also our ways of thinking and therefore experiencing reality: as a necessity
for survival. Moreover, if our praxis did not correspond to our way of
thinking, we would be victims of a cultural schizophrenia that is the great
risk of modern times.
The hymn of the Atharva-veda should not be read as a mere poetic
metaphor or, worse still, as the product of a thought
"primitive". Instead, that hymn gives voice to a different cosmology, to
another cosmos. Truth is not just an epistemic tool, nor order a mere legal
norm. Consecration, or initiation, represents the human connection to the
Earth, and ardour is that energy that makes Man different from other
animals. The word is not reduced to an instrumental term, nor the sacrifice
to a superstitious rite.
The quoted text is certainly not the only one. The hymns on skambha in
the Atharva-veda itself, the Puru asūkta of the g-veda, as well as many
other texts from other traditions reveal a different idea of what we continue
to call our oikos our Earth, our anthropological habitat. Nothing removes
from my mind the suspicion that our discovery of the expanse of the
universe will
dazzled us to the point of distracting us from its (other) greatness. The
human habitat is larger and richer than purely material space, or rather:
space is more than mere distance.
It is obviously not a question of sticking the insights of the Vedas into the
framework of current scientific cosmology. The challenge is much more
radical. The world situation no longer allows us to remain provincials
locked in their mono-culture. But neither is it a question of uncritically
accepting old and obsolete images of the world.2 Precisely because we
cannot ignore the scientific revolutions, today the challenge of humanity
demands a radical transformation from us - as I have always maintained.
This has triggered a timid reaction, which has spread throughout the world
under the name of ecology. And yet, it is my thesis, ecology continues to
operate under the aegis of the dominant cosmology.
I am not saying that all ecological movements are superficial, but that a
giant step must now be taken. On the one hand, the word ecosophy pays
tribute to the ecological awareness that is spreading across the world, and
on the other hand, it broadens its meaning from a more intercultural
perspective. We must rediscover the intrinsic value of this loka, bhūmi,
Earth, of this planet and of human life, and no longer alienate ourselves
from our environment. A mutation is required. What I aim for is to make us
experience the Earth as the primordial foundation on which we not only
stand but are - and without forgetting the divine dimension. In other words,
the world is also a religious category, as long as we do not turn religion into
a cult. I will touch on this complex issue from only one other perspective,
although I will then draw several consequences.
By the term 'ecosophy' (already used by Arno Naess, but with a different
meaning) I do not mean a better specified or more refined ecology. The
Industrial Revolution also had its own idea of the world, as a human habitat
in a narrow sense, and intended to use the Earth as best it could, i.e. in the
service of Man as 'king of creation and lord of the Earth'. In general,
modern ecology has not renounced this idea. It has only qualified the
concept better in the light of the bitter discovery that, if we want to continue
to exploit the Earth, we must treat it better, with more kindness, so that it
can provide us with its fruits for longer. If necessary, we will resort to
recycling, but t h e basic attitude remains the same: 'eco-logy' as
rational exploitation of the Earth as a resource. We are still within the
Judeo-Christian scientist myth.
It is illuminating that a very serious ecological association, founded in
1982, called itself the MacArthur Foundation for World Resources, as if the
nature of the Earth consisted only in the resources it offered to man. In
1984, the magnificent and useful essay Gaia came out, with the significant
subtitle: Atlas for Planetary Management... still with the Baconian
obsession of having to manage, that is, control an otherwise wild and
inanimate planet. Words have their own power. That is why the expression
'deep ecology' (Warwick Fox et al.) does not seem sufficient to me -
however much I appreciate it. It is not the Earth that needs healing. We are
the sick ones. We need ecosophy.
Ecosophy postulates a radical change in our perception of both Earth and
Man - and the Divine, I might add. The three are interrelated. The
neologism is not simply meant to convey the idea of our logos applied to
our oikos, our rationality applied to our world, but to communicate the
insight that neither anthropocentrism nor rationalism (even in the best sense
of the word) does justice to the problem. The oikos is not our personal
habitat, it is the home of all beings, the bhūmi of the Atharva-veda hymn;
the Divine also dwells in it.
The oikos as understood by ecosophy completely changes the notion of
Earth, both in a geological and anthropological sense. It is not only the
astronomical planet Earth of the 'scientific' universe, nor only the overall
horizon of human consciousness (in the manner of Husserl, Jaspers or
Heidegger, for example, with all respect and admiration for these thinkers).
The oikos of which we attempt to decipher the sophia, or rather to
participate in its wisdom, more closely recalls the divine kosmos of the pre-
Socratics or the reality described in the nāsadīyasūkta and the puru asūkta,
the two famous hymns of the g-veda: the entire reality in which we live and
are. It also recalls the ta of Vedic intuition, the dynamic totality of all
processes of the Real. Ecosophy is true sophia, authentic wisdom.
The ancients were not entirely mistaken in believing that the Earth was at
the centre of the universe. They were only mistaken astronomically, just as
moderns are mistaken geometrically, as if the postulates of our minds
constituted genuine cosmic categories. Man is not the physical centre, nor is
his logos the lord of all, and yet the
human awareness remains an unavoidable parameter. Metaphors could be
misleading. It is evident that man is not the centre of the universe. In a
purely astronomical universe made up of mere matter, it would be
ridiculous to place the human body at the centre, just as in an individualist
and egalitarian democracy, the voice of a single individual is quantité
négligeable a front of 6 billion other individuals. Ecosophy disputes all
these myths.
The 'wisdom of the Earth' referred to by the term 'ecosophy' implies a
genitive that is both subjective and objective. Ecosophy is both our wisdom
(knowledge) about the Earth and the wisdom of the Earth itself, which
opens up to us when we are willing to understand it, i.e. to 'stand under' the
enchantment of what it reveals to us. Ecosophy is the true wisdom of the
Earth, not simply technical (human) know-how.
Our current anthropocentric culture has no difficulty accepting the idea
that we must refine our view of (objective genitive) an (abstract) object
called the world, if not the universe. On the other hand, the subjective
genitive of a wisdom inherent in the Earth demands a less anthropocentric
and less epistemic point of view, without however adhering to a magical
vision of the cosmos. Human knowledge resides within us, but such
knowledge is not our private property nor is it limited to purely objective
knowledge of something. If the world were not knowable, we could not
know it; and that knowability resides precisely in the world, not in us.
Reality is cosmotheandric (theo-anthropic-cosmic), and everything is
connected to everything. We are not mere spectators of an inert reality.
The word sophia reminds us that ecosophy is neither pure 'poetry', mere
'romanticism', nor pure 'rationality' (rationalism) - using all these terms in a
popular, non-philosophical sense. Sophia is wisdom (prajñā), a knowledge
that includes within itself both poetry and rationality. It is not a 'primitive',
'pre-logical' approach to reality, as modern anthropologists categorised the
worldviews of the pre-scientific era. Nor is it the result of an autonomous,
self-founded reason applying its own laws to the Earth. Perhaps it was
nevertheless necessary for us to pass through these stratifications, which
remain visible in our palaeo-technological anthrōpos. Our relationship with
the Earth is neither monist nor dualist, but advaitic. The fact remains that
we must overcome both irrationality and rationalism, and without falling
into an equally
unilateral post-rationalist modernity. Reason is not our only point of
reference. We cannot assume, without falling into a vicious circle, that our
mind's laws of thought also apply to the Earth.
Ecosophy suggests that the source of feelings, action and knowledge is
not to be found in man taken for his own sake, even though it is primarily in
us and through us that the Earth expresses its 'feelings, actions and
thoughts'. I also want to emphasise here that overcoming autonomous
anthropocentrism must not, however, lead us to a heteronomous
cosmocentrism, or even a heteronomous theocentrism for that matter. This
is why I speak of an ontonome cosmotheandric intuition. Kosmos, theos,
antrhōpos are the three constitutive dimensions of Reality, where the centre
is nowhere to be found and no one is the master. I think back to the second
proposition in the famous Book of 24 Philosophers: 'Deus est sphaera
infinita cuius centrum est ubique, circumferentia nusquam' (God is an
infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere).
I repeat once again that the contemporary situation calls for radical
measures, not technological patches ; it calls for more than 'well-meaning'
reforms; it calls for a complete metanoia, a transcending of nous, an
overcoming of manas, of the mental. It demands sophia, prajñā, buddhi,
wisdom, enlightenment, discernment - bandham-mok am (freedom from
bonds), as one might understand the verse in the Bhagavad-gītā (XVIII, 30).
It goes without saying that the alternative is not what dialectical thinking
would pose, i.e. it is not irrationalism.
The word 'ecosophy' suggests a wisdom of which we are not the owners.
This wisdom (prajñā) derives from reality itself, as Vedānta would claim;
from the celestial spheres, Plato would say; or from the divine work of
creation, monotheism would advocate. The modern rift between
epistemology and ontology has turned the former into anthropocentric
idolatry and the latter into uncritical superstition. The term 'idolatry' might
sound too strong; a more nuanced word might suffice. And yet, if
epistemology has no other referents than itself, then epistēmē is founded on
itself, whether it is evidence or anything else. In other words, it becomes an
absolute, and this is precisely the ultimate meaning of idolatry. On the other
hand, if we rely on the on (being - of ontology) without analysing our
cognitive faculty or its source, without any criteria, we fall into superstition.
Here we touch the limits of the humanum. And this is where ecosophy
leads us: to the discovery of our contingency, to the awareness of our real
situation.
"Where are the hidden traces of the gods?" asks a G-dic hymn (I, 164.5).
"Or can it be that He who guards the heavens higher does not know?"
comments one of the most quoted hymns of that same tradition.3.
Man's highest dignity could not consist in the
awareness of their own ignorance, as so many Christian mystics claim?
I take up this idea only to point out that ecosophy is not a secondary
appendix to ecology. Our destiny is at stake here. But I will not insist on
that.
Having cut its ties with ontology, the epistēmē of modern science finds
itself having to justify itself, and it can only do so by exhibiting its concrete
results: the successes of technology. It was the technocratic dream, even
before it became a reality, that paved the way for the scientific ideal that
preceded modern technology. Modern science has an intrinsic compulsive
drive towards technocracy. Epistemology, once detached from ontology,
needs a foundation in itself. Technological power (technocracy) offers a
plausible substitute for this: technology 'works', 'helps', is 'useful'. Here is
the justification of pragmatism. From the deification of Reason by the
European 'Enlightenment' we have logically arrived at the absolutization of
the Rational, which leads to the current situation. The result is the
Megamachine, be it called Universe, Man, Civilisation (or even God, with
the ridiculous title of Supreme Engineer).
On the other hand, the ontology of modern Western (post-Cartesian)
philosophies, once divorced from a critical theory of knowledge
(epistemology), is forced to take refuge in a blind trust in tradition, with a
resentful critique of modern technoscience and mental inertia under the
burden of the past. It must postulate a God who, once made dependent on
our evidence of His existence, demands a further explanation that we are
unable to provide. Thus God becomes a
superfluous assumption - or a superstition, as they say, if one clings to it.
Now, rather than continue along this line, I will briefly address a
threefold issue that will indirectly clarify our theme.

1. Policy

If ecology seeks the best means to carry on business as usual, since 'we
cannot turn back the hands of Evolution', and thus desperately seeks
'sustainable development' (as is fashionable to say), ecosophy challenges
precisely this approach.
Ecosophy is incompatible with any kind of radical development, be it
technological, soft, sustainable or whatever. The word itself shows its own
bias: living beings grow, they do not
'develop'. Or rather, within specific limits a certain 'progress' is undeniable.
Our question, however, goes deeper. The very archetypes underlying the
idea of development imply a mechanistic anthropology that three quarters
of the world's population would find inadequate. The current notion of
development is simply synonymous with technological development. In my
opinion, introducing this notion everywhere is tantamount to a Trojan
horse, in the belly of which are lurking business executives who want to
convince the rest of the world to feed the markets of the 'developed world',
because 'they' (the 'third world') 'without us' will not be able to
"develop' and perish. I am not criticising a certain notion of improvement in
human life on an individual, collective and even historical level. I am
criticising that archetype as an ideal of human life, especially in its political
by-products.
To uncritically accept the slogan of 'sustainable development' is to start
down the path of alienating the 'third world', which it would be better to call
'two-thirds (of) the world'. This 'third-class' world, in any case, will only
ever play second fiddle in any kind of
"development'. It is in fact an imported phenomenon, not inherent to the
non-Western psychē in general. It is not without reason that technological
civilisation is the creature (exceptional, if one looks at it in isolation) of one
and only one culture (the western one).
 One does not need to be an expert, or a prophet of doom, to see that the
gap between rich and poor is widening both between and within nations,
which will lead to the slaughter of the Earth by the most technologically
powerful specimens of the human species - even sheer intelligence is
strength. The figures are well known. Let us recall just a few figures: in
2003, over 12 million children under the age of 5 died of starvation due to
avoidable poverty (34,000 per day); 1.3 billion people lived in 'total
deprivation'. Not to mention the 200 million people killed by genocides and
wars during the 20th century. In the year 2000 alone, a further 1.5 million
people died as a result of violence, etc.
Everything is intertwined. Development is neither a universal nor a
neutral value. It is ideologically oriented, and only serves the interests of
the particular civilisation that sponsors it. To see no alternative to
development is nothing more than a modern form of colonialism, because,
to reiterate, the essence of colonialism does not consist in the exploitation
of other peoples, but in mono-culturalism, that is, in the belief that one
culture can offer the model and theoretical solution to humanity's problems.
Colonialism is not a moral evil, it is an intellectual mistake, and today also
a political mistake.
The idea of development implies an anthropology whereby Man would
be a bundle of potential needs, which only ask to be expressed in order to
make life happy and meaningful. Development assumes that man develops
in the same way that the material universe unfolds as it evolves. No wonder
development leads to a more or less ruthless competition for the survival of
the fittest - not necessarily the best. There is something fundamentally
wrong with the ideology of development. When the rhythms are broken and
we find ourselves living within a closed system (as the Earth practically is),
any artificial development on one side will come at the expense of
somewhere else. Every 'improvement' on the micro-level will have negative
repercussions on the macro-level: the richer 'we' become, the poorer 'they'
will become. This is a simple empirical fact.

*
 Let us imagine, for example, a completely different universe, sensitive to
concepts such as awakening, enlightenment, realisation - without needing to
resort to bodhi (bodhisattva), vikā©a, prabhu, prakā©a and so many other
notions typical of the Indian traditions. Each of these words opens up
another universe. Awakening, for example, is not a competitive concept,
nor is it denigrating like the current designations
"officials" who shamelessly talk about "underdeveloped" and, worse, in a
condescending tone, "developing" countries, giving them hope that they can
make it but knowing full well that this will not be possible or desirable. If
the whole world consumed the amount of paper that the US consumes, there
would not be a tree left on the planet in two years. In the India of 2004,
there are 8 cars per 1,000 people, compared to 487 in the USA... and one
car, ecologically speaking, produces the amount of pollution that 15
children in 'developed countries' produce in five years. The 'car explosion'
is more frightening than the population explosion.
I will not go into the various connotations and consequences of the
notion of awakening here. Suffice it to mention that, for the Indian tradition,
categories such as vidyā, mok a, ānanda, jīvanmukta, śānti, brahmajñāna
and the like are fundamental. If we banish all these notions from public and
political life, leaving them for the exclusive use of the household, I wonder
if we have not already killed the Hindu dharma by succumbing to the most
desacralising ideology.
The notion of ecosophy transcends not only the ideology of nation states,
but also the idea of sovereign nationalism(s). The biological realm has no
fixed, let alone artificial, borders. Bioregions are often interconnected, or
rather imperceptibly blurring into each other like the colours of the
rainbow. If Man is also an 'animal', i.e. a living being vitalised by an
animus, then he cannot dissociate himself from the animal kingdom without
harming himself. If we mistreat or destroy the Earth, we ultimately mistreat
or destroy ourselves. Relationality is constitutive.
The political consequences are obvious. We cannot continue in this way
without self-destructing. Growth knows a homeostasis; development cannot
stop on its own... and violence would not be the solution. This is the
dilemma, and our hard condition. Ecosophy
demands a different conception of politics. Also
the polis is also part of the oikos.

2. Science

It is encouraging to note that in the West, and even more significantly in

the scientific community, people are beginning to take seriously that
thousand-year-old belief of the peoples of the Earth that goes by the
pejorative name of 'animism'. Everything is alive, and the Earth itself has a
soul, that is, a life of its own. I use the term 'animism' in the traditional
sense that a divine animating principle is immanent in the world, or rather
in Nature. Life, soul, psychē is not an accidental character of reality, an
epiphenomenon confined to a small corner of the universe: it is an essential
attribute of the Real. Besides the ìndic notions listed above, we have the
classical concept of āyus (time [of] life), caitanya (universal conscious
soul), asu (asudhāra a) and many others. They indicate not only the
'energetic' character of the universe, but its life, and a life that is divine, in
spite of all Western and Christian fears of pantheism. The widespread belief
in a anima mundi has never been condemned by the Christian Church; it
has only been made clear that such a soul is not to be identified or confused
with the Holy Spirit.
Ecosophy treats the Earth as a living being, both in each of its members
and as a whole. The question is not just whether or not it is right to torture
animals because this may be 'useful' to human life. The issue is the same
methodological approach to matter and the physical world, whose names -
physis, nature, bhūmi - already indicate something generated, something
alive. The Logos, through whom everything was made, was life (zōē), says
the prologue of John's Gospel. It goes without saying that not every life is
identical with the other. Human life is not equivalent to that of a plant, but
the whole of reality is a living organism of which we are also part. I like to
quote a Christian saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, who almost a century before
St Francis of Assisi dared to write: Ligna et lapides docebunt te, quod a
magistris audire non posses ("Trees and stones will teach you what you can
never hear from masters"). Nature is alive, and we must listen to her.
 Ecosophy dares to challenge the great idol of our century: modern
science. Let me make it clear that when I say modern science, I am not
referring to science as such but to the specific traits of today's science,
without denying the authentic knowledge it conveys.
My provocative assertion, which I have expounded several times, is that
modern science is 'perverted' - not in the moral sense of course. It has, to
begin with, perverted the very name of science, which meant scientia,
gnōsis, jñāna, i.e. a liberating identification and communion with the
known object, - and thus intrinsically united with love. Traditionally,
knowledge was the faculty (cf. Erkenntnis, da können, kennen) of
identifying with the thing known and assimilating it (jñāna). It entailed the
threefold activity that makes Man human: knowing, loving (wanting) and
acting, i.e. discerning, making the right choice and putting it into practice.
Such knowledge has a saving power. The ideal of wisdom, sapientia, jñāna
still conveys this threefold faculty; whereas modern science is reduced to
calculation, fascinating and useful as long as one likes, but without any
saving power.
Second, modern science is based on a method of quantification and
experimentation, so it needs external control. Modern science had to wait
until 1927 (Heisenberg) to realise that every observation modifies the
observed reality; that every knowledge 'touches' the known object - as was a
common belief in most traditional cultures. The sage not only possessed
knowledge, he also possessed power, precisely because he 'knew' and to
know meant to be in communion with reality. Ecosophy does not approach
living beings as if they were inert, inanimate 'matter'; it respects their
spontaneity while recognising the hierarchical order of reality (crushing a
mosquito is not the same thing as killing a human being). Or put in
philosophical language, one cannot extrapolate from science to
metaphysics, even from knowing how things react to knowing what they
are. Matter itself is living. And in turn, the notion of life is not limited to
the bios of plants and animals. Hence, any purely mechanistic approach to
reality is methodologically flawed.
I certainly do not contest the results of science. I criticise the
extrapolation of the scientific method to other areas of reality. For centuries,
courts have legally extracted confessions through torture, and I suspect that
many of those confessions were true... just like the scientific facts!
 Everything, of course, revolves around the question of what life is,
particularly human life. That is why the problem is neither technical nor
purely scientific. It is a religious problem, insofar as religion touches the
deepest core of man, since it deals with the ultimate questions.
I am not saying that we should not 'modernise' or change. On the
contrary, I am saying that these questions will not be answered by merely
'aesthetic' changes: instead, they require a direct experience of what reality
and human life are.
Thirdly, modern science presupposes notions of matter, energy, life,
space, time, which clash with African and Asian cultures, and are foreign to
the most deeply rooted archetypes among the peoples of those continents,
who will never be able to be creative in such a foreign setting. To say, for
example, that India also has good scientists in the modern sense of the term
completely misses the mark, because it is not a question of subjective skills.
It is a question of the survival of other world cultures and religions. A
'survival' that only makes sense if the lives of these cultures or religions are
not to be assimilated into the so-called 'superior civilisations' and 'great
religions' - as a certain colonialist mentality would have it.
Modern science is such a fundamental feature of our world that we can
deal with it without too much detail. We will consider a twofold hypothesis.

a) If technoscience were only a specialisation, we could do without it;

but it has become an indispensable specialisation. So we are at the mercy of
the specialists. This syndrome merely replicates centuries of domination of
a privileged caste over the rest of humanity, and with two aggravating
factors. First, traditional societies recognised a hierarchical order, so the
power of elites was believed to have a divine seal; this in turn made that
power less arbitrary (kings, priests, Brahmans, etc., had to respect that
given universal order). Secondly, today the power of the scientific caste
confers on life and death a power immensely greater than that possessed by
any caste in any other age. To realise this, one only has to think of
blackouts in mega-cities, or visit a modern hospital or base
military. It is one thing to be inter-independent (pratītyasamutpāda,
karman), quite another to be totally dependent (bound).
But if modern science is not an indispensable specialisation, yet we
continue to use it, then we are in a situation of collective compulsion not
unlike drug addiction. It will take drastic treatment, and the recovery
process will be long and painful. The proliferation of alternative
movements, as well as the revival of fundamentalist ideologies can be
explained as impatient reactions to this state of affairs.

b) If, on the other hand, modern science is not a specialisation acquired

through a fragmentation of knowledge, but a definitive result for the whole
of humanity, something universal and for all, then a 'crusade' should be
called for, not to educate (e-ducere: to draw from the deepest recesses of
the psyche) but to liberate the peoples of the 'third world' from all their
'prejudices', their notions of reality and worldviews, so as to convert them,
mentally circumcise them, initiate them into the one Science
"outside of which there is no salvation". Then we should drop the
romanticism and eradicate all those 'primitive' notions about time and space,
indeed about the meaning of human existence, and 'convert' them to modern
scientific ideology.
All I am saying is that if we believe that modern science is the Answer to
the world's problems, we should defend its cause with reason, not
uncritically. We should not take it for granted, thus debasing the substance
of which all other cultures in the world are also made. We should address
the problem at this level, because nothing less would do justice to the pitiful
condition of non-Western cultures. Indeed, change, modernisation and even
progress should not be seen as alienation, denial and negation of one's
identity but, on the contrary, as true progress and improvement. Ironically,
now that the 'theology of fulfilment' is in its twilight years, modern science
inherits its archetype.
The question is to examine whether modern science is truly universal,
'Catholic', or whether it is instead historically bound to a very specific
cultural context, and presupposes a set of beliefs, assumptions, postulates or
principles that are alien and incompatible with the ethos and pathos of other
cultures. The question is whether the assumptions underlying science
modern are compatible, or not at all, with the worldviews and experiences
of reality of those cultures. And the answer is obvious. If the worldview of
modern science represents a real improvement, the 'underdeveloped' and
'primitive' peoples have nothing to lose by allowing themselves to be
absorbed into a 'superior' civilisation. It will only be a matter of acting
tactfully, with some understanding of their antiquated habits.

This is the implicit belief in development, which goes by the name of

modernisation. I, on the contrary, argue that, in short, modern science is
neither neutral nor universal, as the two basic beliefs of the colonialists
would have it. Myths die harder than rational ideas.
Ecosophy cuts the Gordian knot of our modern entanglement
"scientific" making most scientific questions secondary or irrelevant. If life
- and life in its fullness - consists in knowing and sharing, to the human
measure, the wisdom of the Earth and the mysteries of the Real, so as to
guarantee Man's full participation in the adventure of Reality, then we do
not need much of the data and skills with which modern science stuffs our
brains and hearts.
Here, as elsewhere, it is not a question of repressing scientific curiosity
or rejecting scientific methods. It is about losing interest in those things,
without of course turning back to obsolete obscurantism and uncritical
ideas. The challenge is enormous, but the situation demands that we face it.
This is the natural seat of religion: to disclose to us the meaning of life - its
meaning, I would say, if the word were not too rationalist. Now, the
intellectual side of religion is precisely the subject of our third reflection:
philosophy.

3. Philosophy

Ecosophy, however, contains another revolutionary germ. It overturns

not only the Western belief in progress but, along with it, the underlying
myth of History (one of the most fundamental myths of dominant Western
culture), which is closely linked to monotheistic religions. This myth is at
one with the notion of development and modern science. Progress, History,
Development and Modern Science form the cultural envelope of Western
civilisation, and all four are intrinsically related.
 To summarise and simplify an extremely long and complex story, I will
sum it all up in the notion of 'directional time'.
The modern, and prevalent, concept of time is well expressed by two
images: the arrow simile and the metaphor of progress.
The image of the arrow is omnipresent in every field into which modern
mechanised and scientific civilisation has penetrated. It has pervaded our
mentality all the more subtly the less expressly it has been introduced, given
that it appears - so to speak - innate to modern society. According to this
conception, time always has a destination and moves in a certain direction:
the future, of course. It is irrelevant whether the arrow moves in a straight
line or zig-zags, or even curves and goes round and round. It still remains
an arrow that hits (or misses) a target. Whether it is heaven above, the
perfect society ahead, happiness at hand, nowhere or death, in any case the
arrow of time always flies towards a linear future.
For other cultures, time is not an arrow at all; it cannot be symbolised by
an arrow advancing ('progressing') into the future. Moreover, real time
cannot even be measured because, as the ancients knew, time is "the
foundation of all worlds ".4, the origin of everything5, that within which
everything dissolves ve6, "the revealer of all things" (Gaudapāda); "time is
the very life of Being" (Hesychius). Time is another name for life and
being, seen from an essentially - but not solely - human perspective, which
is precisely that of time. But I will skip further reflections on the subject.
Our main issue concerns the fact that modern science can only operate
within the framework of linear time, i.e. in relation to the movements of
bodies moving in one direction. The connection, discovered by Kant,
between space and time betrays his interest in providing a theoretical basis
for the then incipient modern science. In other words, scientific time is
spatial time, spatially measurable time - and the vibratory motions of
elementary particles are no exception. Modern science is proud of itself
when it discovers a direction, a goal of time, and finally an initial time: a
big bang and an omega point, all temporal. For sociological reasons of the
spectacular triumph of modern science, this scientific time has become the
virtually universal paradigm of time. We feel 'real' to the extent that we are
'on the move', in which we run
(or we walk) into the future, or we live in an eschatological perspective.
There are clearly possibilities for regression. But modern man lives for
the future; the present is only an intermediate stage, a preparation for the
next step, whether it is coming of age, or becoming saints (being saved), or
paving the way for our children or the future of our family, or clan, nation,
science, humanity, or the entire cosmos. Homo viator, or even better, homo
itinerans. As the Vedānta says: we are pilgrims, and thirsty pilgrims at that,
only until we realise that there is no such thing as a pilgrimage because the
'destination' is already here and now - an unscientific 'here and now', of
course. The essence of the journey consists in the going, not in the goal; the
telos exists only in our minds. In a word, there is no arrow of real time.
The second image, linked to the first, is that of progress. History then
becomes the bed of the temporal river in which events happen, flowing in a
precise direction towards an eschatological sea: Divinity, nothingness,
classless society, fulfilment or whatever. The Omega point (with a capital O
in reference to the cosmos, or lower case in relation to the lives of
individuals) seems to dominate all existence. We all run towards/to an end,
which may receive degrading or sublime names:
'Way to Heaven', Sein zum Tode.
Ecosophy challenges this perspective. I could clothe the discourse in a
cross-cultural cloak and philosophical costume... as already mentioned,
ecosophy implies a radically different view of the world.
The Hindū experience of life, and even more pointedly that of Buddhism,
is that life is life, and does not need to be justified by what we do or where
we go, by success rather than failure. The ideal is not to reach Heaven or
whatever, but to get out of saṃsāra, to jump out of the circle, to overcome
inauthenticity, avidyā, ignorance. Nirvā...a is not the goal, the end, the
destination, the telos of man. Otherwise, how could the very desire for
nirvā...a make it unattainable, as the Buddha never tires of repeating? One
enjoys life, one lives life, one suffers life, one escapes time, and perhaps
returns to it, but never arrives anywhere. Brahmaloka is only about the
present time, it is part of the process - perhaps to give us a new chance to
dodge the arrow of time. Whether our life is long or short is secondary to
whether we actually live or not. The work ethic, the
sense of history, of purpose, time as a road leading somewhere... are alien
and alienating factors for the psychē ìndica. Tat tvam asi, 'you are (already)
that', not you will be.
From a philosophical point of view, I would say that the true essence of
time consists of rhythm, since this is the true nature of reality. Reality is
rhythmic. Rhythm does not go anywhere, it has no telos. The 'final cause' is
only secondary. Otherwise, freedom would also be secondary, and Truth
could not make us free.7. Here we go to the very core of Western
civilisation.
Returning to the subject, time is an attribute of the Real, an inherent
characteristic of each being as it is real. If historical time went anywhere,
we would begin to realise that we were heading for a catastrophe: death or
Armageddon. Time is rhythmic, it moves, it dances, i t i s always new and
always the same, or rather it is neither different nor the same because there
is no background against which identity and difference could acquire
meaning. Śiva is Naṭarāja, Lord of Dance, and dance is the embodiment of
rhythm.
The Indian ethos has always experienced time as a great cosmic dance,
and our human temporal existence as participation in it for the time that it
is, that is, for our being in time. Life would otherwise be intolerable.
To put it on a more existential level: what is the meaning of life for the
immense majority of people who do not 'make it'? For all those who do not
survive, the oppressed, the exploited, the poor? The law of the victors does
not only apply in times of war!
Today, the Abrahamic phylum of human culture wonders whether there
can be a God, a God of History, after Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and all the
gulags, Guantanamo, eruptions and earthquakes. For most of the peoples of
the Earth, the aborigines, the slaves, the marginalised, the people dying of
hunger, the sick, the oppressed... History has always been a 'valley of tears'.
Genuine hope cannot be about the future: it must refer to the invisible, t o
another dimension that makes life worth living even in a condition of
exploitation. Making a virtue of necessity must not become a vice; but, for
the oppressed, it is the only chance to preserve their human dignity. It is
quite understandable that proclaiming that 'everything will be fine' in the
near or distant future becomes a mockery in the ears of the
victims - and this also applies to an eschatological future after death. I
repeat that hope is about the unseen, not the future.
Progress tries to make us believe that we have to go somewhere, that we
are runners in a race, perhaps not a race for weapons or against competition,
but nevertheless a race towards a difficult and problematic victory, as if
every kuruk etra (battlefield) is necessarily a dharmak etra (field of dharma
)8. Modern education is designed to offer a goal, a purpose to life. We are
always in a hurry to reach partial goals. It is no coincidence that the great
invention of modern science has been acceleration. And paradoxically,
because everything is seen as a means to an end, we find ourselves caught
up in the means, grappling with ever more sophisticated means. Modern
civilisation is a civilisation of tools, of means.
The attitude we have just described in no way justifies the opposite state
of mind, that of indifference, of fuga mundi, of fatalism; which are real
risks that emerge by dialectical reaction from the opposite worldview.

***

I resisted the technological temptation to jump to solutions rather than

just solving the problem by dissolving it. Here the 'solvent' is the traditional
view of life as rhythm. The dance of Śiva! The solvent is not an idealisation
of the past, nor is it a blindness to the present. However, we cannot fail to
recognise that the question concerns the very meaning of life, and this is the
place of philosophy.
Modern man suffers from an atrophy of that 'third sense,' 'third eye' still
celebrated in the songs of most cultures, and which makes life worth living.
The 'immortal life' does not mean an endless existence, but the eternal life
lived in our tempiternity.
I had mentioned that ecosophy is not yet another paradigm. It is an
(immediate) experience of the (ultimate) reality of the world as our habitat,
and the place where (divine) Life itself resides. We need to learn and live
without paradigms, without imitating or following models. If our heart is
not pure, better to have a model: better the crutches of paralysis, indeed,
better the light of reason than darkness
of irrationalism. However, we should not forget that 'lesser evils' have often
been used as justification for greater evils.
Ecosophy is not a new paradigm. It is a reminder that the oikos of
ecosophy is an ultimate dimension of what we have called the radical
Trinity or cosmotheandric vision. For it, kosmos, together with theos and
anthrōpos, is an ultimate constitutive element of Reality.
Here I would like to expand on one philosophical point. After Kant's
brilliant revolution, epistemology took over from ontology. Thus we return
to the old and honoured Parmenidean dogma that, albeit with considerable
variations, has dominated the West for 26 centuries.
Epistemology has become the 'queen of the philosophical sciences'.
Traditional philosophy was based on Being. Epistemology was based on
critical knowledge. Being was considered an Ultimate. Now epistemology
is based on Being, whether one calls it evidence, 'clear and distinct ideas' or
absolute Idealism. In other words, human knowledge becomes an Ultimate.
This is what could be called the idolatry of epistemology.
But our human and noble faculty of thought is 'devout', i.e. it demands a
Last. "Das Fragen ist die Frömmigkeit des Denkens" (Heidegger)9. Now,
the foundation of knowledge can only be knowledge itself: knowledge
based on knowledge, which is a vicious circle. Thus, human knowledge
becomes an ultimate reality, leaving no room for pluralism. It is no
coincidence that all monotheisms affirm that God is absolute Knowledge.
The difficulties arise when we claim to be His interpreters, or even the
interpreters of the Promise (the true interpreters). All idols - even if we call
them icons - have feet of ar gilla10.
This is the philosophical seat of ecosophy: the Earth, matter, the universe
are constituent parts of that Trinitarian Ultimate that I have called
Cosmotheandric Reality. This view does not make Matter an Ultimate, nor
God taken in Himself, nor Knowledge. The Ultimate (if we want to use this
term, because we will have to stop at some point) is the Trinitarian
relationality between these three constitutive dimensions of the Real, in
which each dimension is irreducible to the others, and therefore
incommensurable.
Let us simply accept the human condition. And in it we will discover
Truth, Beauty and Peace... without falling into the temptation of the
progenitors.

1 Cf. Atharva-veda non XII, 1.1.

2 However, I cannot resist the temptation to quote Victorian art critic John Ruskin's Seven Lamps o f
Architecture. By 'lamps' Ruskin means those that should illuminate the mind of an architect. And they
are: sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, love, memory and obedience. The analogy is striking. (Text quoted
by A. I. Kahera in Cross Currents 52, 3 [Autumn 2002], p. 328).
3 Cf. g-veda X, 129.7.
4 Cf. Atharva-veda XIX, 54.4.
5 Cf. Atharva-veda XIX, 53.
6 Cf. Maitrī-upani ad I, 4.
7 Cf. Jn 8:32.
8 Cf. Bhagavad-gītā I, 1.
9 'Questioning is the piety [kindness] of thought'.
10 Cf. Daniel 2.33.
 Raimon Panikkar
OPERA OMNIA
Edited by the Author and Milena Carrara Pavan
* Published volumes

I
MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY
Tome 1. Mysticism, Fullness of Life*; Tome 2. Spirituality, the Path of Life*.

II
RELIGION AND RELIGIONS*

III
CHRISTIANITY
Tome 1. The Christian Tradition; Tome 2.

IV
HINDUISM
Tome 1. The Vedic Experience. Mantramañjarī; Tome 2. The Dharma of India

V BUDDHISM

VI
CULTURES AND RELIGIONS IN DIALOGUE
Tome 1. Pluralism and interculturalism*; Tome 2. Intercultural and interreligious dialogue*.

VII
HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY

VIII
TRINITARIAN AND COSMOTHEANDRIC VISION: GOD-MAN-COSMOS*

IX
MYSTERY AND HERMENEUTICS
Tome 1. Myth, symbol, cult*; Tome 2. Faith, hermeneutics, speech

X
PHILOSOPHY AND
THEOLOGY
Tome 1. The Rhythm of Being. The Gifford Lectures*; Tome 2. Philosophical and
theological thought

XI SACRED
SECULARITY

XII
SPACE, TIME AND SCIENCE
 *
MISCELLANY
(Lectures, Lectures, Prologues, Poems...)

FRAMES OF A DIARY
 More works by Raimon Panikkar at Jaca Book

The fullness of man. A Christophany, 1999, 20033

Myth, faith and hermeneutics. The triple veil of reality, 2000
The Indispensable Encounter: Dialogue of Religions, 2001
Peace and Interculturality. A philosophical reflection, 2002,
20062 Cosmotheandric Reality. God-Man-World, 2004 The
Experience of Life. Mysticism, 2005
Easter Joy, The Presence of God and Mary, 2007
The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, 2008
M. Carrara Pavan (ed.), I mistici nelle grandi tradizioni. Homage to Raimon Panikkar, Prologue by R.
Panikkar, with DVD, 2009
Life and Word. My Work, 2010
Religion, the World and the Body, 2010
Pilgrimage and Return to the Source (with M. Carrara Pavan), with DVD, 2012
Confidence. Analysis of a feeling, 2013
Are we talking about the same God? (with Pinchas Lapide), 2014
Are we talking about the same reality? (with Emanuele Severino), 2014
Contents
1. Cover
2. Frontispiece
3. Copyright
4. INDEX
5. Preface
6. Part One: ECOSOPHY, OR THE COSMOTEANDRIAL
RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE
7. Part Two: ECOSOPHY: AN INTERCULTURAL
REFLECTION

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Landmarks
1. Cover
2. Frontispiece
3. Index
4. Front page