Mythology is symbolic, never literal !

Carl Gustav Jung was a genius. He declared that all Mythology, including Christian Mythology, is symbolic and allegorical and not literal.

A disciple of Freud, Jung came across a fanstastic discovery. He was researching on the dreams of some of his patients. He wrote the figures seen by his patients and saw that they bear a close resemblance to the figures seen in Alchemy and Astrology.

He postulated that dreams are projections of the Unconscious.

He postulated that The Ocean of Reality resembles an ocean. The waves are the individual egos. Deep within the gross level is the subtle level. The subtle level of an individual ego he called the Personal Unconscious and the rock bottom of the Ocean of Reality is the Collective Unconscious, known as Brahman, the Absolute, in transcendental philosophy !

Henry David Thoreau

" In the early hours of the morning, I bathe in my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Geetha, before which the modern world appears puny & trivial."

Thoreau can be said to be Gandhi's Guru. It was Thoreau's book " The Civil Disobedience " which gave Gandhi the inspiration to launch the Non-violent Movement. It is said that Gandhi brought back from America what was fundamentally the philosophy of India, after it was baked in the mind of Thoreu !

His masterpiece ' The Walden" has 18 chapters, modelled after the 18 chapters of the Geetha and the 18 parvas of the Mahabharatha.

He was truly the American Sage. Whitman, Emerson and Thoreau are the Trinity of American Transcendentalism !

His famous quote " When the law of the land is against the Law of Conscience, the best place for a man is jail " !

The Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

Turning to the Inmost God is what is called " Vibhakthi ", or worshipping the Absolute Self, knowing that I am Thee ! Vibhakthi in Sanskrit corresponds to the Amor Intellectualis ( Intellectual Love ) of Bruno. We are One. Only through Vibhakthi, Intellectual Love, Amor Intellectualis can the world be saved !

Walt Whitman wrote


Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God
At Nature and her wonders, Space, Time & Death
Then I turn to Thee, O Actual Me,
Lo ! Thou gently mastereth the orbs,
Thou matest with Time, smilest content with Death
And fillest swellest the vastnesses of Space !


The great poet Melpathur also wrote about the Absolute Self thus

In reality I am Thyself
For me there is no binding
By Nature's triune attributes
Nor Salvation; as Nescience
It is that binds the Absolute Self !
The Individual Soul Thou art, all Thou art,
Thou art the Intelligence visible, Nature,
There is nothing in this visible Universe
Which is different from Thee !

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was a transcendentalist. He and other intellectuals founded the Transcendental Club. Carlye gave him a copy of the Geetha. Influenced by it, he founded the Concord Movement.

His poem Brahma shocked the Western world. He sang the glory of the Absolute Self !

If the red slayer thinks he is slain

Or if the slain thinks he is slain

They know not the subtle ways

I keep, tread and pass again

Far and forgot to me is near

Sunlight and shadow are the same

The vanished gods to me appear

For one to me are shame and fame !

They reckon ill who leave me out

But when me they fly, I am the wings!

I am the doubter and the doubt

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings !

The strong gods pine for my abode

And pine in vain the Sacred Seven

And thou meek lover of the Good

Retrace and turn thy back on Heaven !

Hegel

Hegel built so great an edifice that it encompassed the entire realm of human knowledge.

His main postulates are

The Absolute is Being (Thesis )
The Absolute is Becoming ( Antithesis )

The Absolute is Nothing

The Absolute is spiritual ( Synthesis )

And what is the Absolute ? It is One immutably homogenous Infinite.

Bruno - The Western Sankara !

Giordano Bruno was a non-dualist or an Advaitist. To him the Universe was an integral Whole.

"This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death, and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in Nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things." ( De la Causa, principio et uno, On Cause, Principle, and Unity) .

His philosophy was similar to the philosophy of the great Sankara, who maintained that the sum total energy in the Universe is an absolute constant and that Absolute Constant is divine !

When Bruno said that annihilation was impossible in Nature, he was confirming what scientists call the Law of Conservation of Energy or Matter. The Universe, in its aspect as Matter or Energy, can neither be created nor destroyed and all Universal Matter is One.

Many philosophers were inspired by Bruno's idea of Universal Unity. Sankara in the Orient also propounded this theory of Non-dualism or Monism. The great Max Muller said on his deathbed " If I believe in anybody in this world, it is Sankara of the East ".

Our salutations to Bruno for highlighting this idea of Universal Unity. Let this idea of Universal Unity end in World Peace, in a World Government !

To quote John J Kessler Phd, who wrote about Bruno " He is one martyr whose name should lead all the rest. He was not a mere religious sectarian who was caught up in the psychology of some mob hysteria. He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a larger vision of a larger universe ... and he fell into the error of heretical belief. For this poets vision he was kept in a dark dungeon for eight years and then taken out to a blazing market place and roasted to death by fire.

It is an incredible story.