The Wisdom Tradition
Excerpt from an essay by Professor Arnold Keyserling
The world today is undergoing tremendous changes in all areas. The changes are natural and follow known laws. We are living in a time of quantum jump from the Pisces Age of ideologies, religions and empires, to the Aquarian Age of global consciousness and technological civilization. Now, in all parts of the globe, science and mathematics, the computers, have for the first time in human history become the fundamental tools for a meaningful life.
The so-called primitive cultures like the Australian aborigines, the Dogons in Africa, or the Native Americans, never lost the ancient knowledge embedded in myths. But these ancient cultures are for the most part unable to bridge the gap to western civilization. Now, with the newest discoveries of mathematics - deterministic chaos and fractals - and with the discoveries of the Human Potential movement, new links with these ancient cultures have been created. The Laws of Wisdom well known to the ancients are being rediscovered in a modern context.
These new discoveries undercut the basis of the western traditions built on the scientific method. The scientific method, created in the 15th century by the Neapolitan philosopher, Telesius, the father of all the subservient academies of science, essentially means repeatable experiments, verified by logic and mathematics, and giving rise to "heuristic" theories replaced when necessary by new ones. This is an ideal paradigm for science, but the lack of a coherent theoretical frame of reference destroyed the basis of civilization which existed before the 15th century. In the last 300 years of critical rationalism, from Newton to Mandelbrot, the incomplete paradigm of science led to the colonialist destruction of countless archaic civilizations. An adequate theoretical paradigm cannot be found in religious traditions or sectarian ideology. The answer comes instead from the Common Law as described in R.C.L.'s book, Laws of Wisdom, a Law based on the twin pillars of Roman case law, and cosmic verification. The verification comes from the objective mathematics of outer and inner experience, not from subjective verbal formulas - exclusive, fundamentalist dogmas.
With the collapse of communism in 1989, the east-west antagonism vanished, leaving only the north-south creeds. Technology and business in the northern hemisphere of the earth against fundamentalism and nationalism in the southern hemisphere. The basic legal tenants of the emerging global civilization are now accepted virtually everywhere - human rights, freedom of speech, self determinism and democracy based on scientific understanding. However, knowledge of the meaning and sense of life is still missing.
The Common Law today lacks the spiritual element present in R.C.L.'s book, Laws of Wisdom. There are enough religions or creeds to provide definite answers to all the great questions, but their answers don't stand up to critical and scientific investigation. Furthermore, the northern powers threaten to destroy all life, and the real problems are no longer ideological, but ecological. We fail to act in the face of certain predictions, and thus all futurologists predict the inevitable end of civilization, even of all life on earth. The last tribal cultures still having access to the ancient Wisdom knowledge, like the Native Americans, the Africans, the Australian Aborigines and the Siberian Shamans seem doomed to extinction. The answer must come in a new form, tied to the material benefits of the existing computer civilization.
Only one tradition is in touch with both the ancient and the new, and can show us the critical means to re-establish our connections with heaven and the meaning of our existence - the Wisdom tradition. It has until now remained aloof from political problems, but now reemerges in the context of Common Law and Science to allow every individual to make sense of their lives and the flood of information we all now live in.
The new global consciousness - embodied by the School of Wisdom - is based on spiritual democracy and friendship, where every individual thinks for themself with tolerance for the differences of others. The common man can now make sense of his own life, and not depend on others to do so for him. With knowledge of the Laws of Wisdom, as shown by the Wheel which summarizes my work (Professor Keyserling), everyman is able to do this, to think for themself, make sense of their life, and create their own meaning in life. The cosmic laws embedded in the Wheel complete the Common Law of society with its guarantee of basic human rights.
The School of Wisdom teaches the Cosmic Laws, the mathematical basis by which day and night, waking and dreaming life can be united. Based on friendship and non- hierarchial organizations, School of Wisdom teachers help others find their own "medicine" in the Native American sense. The Schools create a living bridge between heaven and earth, helping participants to find and create their own life, being co-creators with God. Every person will then fashion their own work for humanity in tune with the spirit of the times, and their own inner spirit.