{"id":7982,"date":"2015-03-15T22:39:29","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T02:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=7982"},"modified":"2021-03-17T16:50:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T20:50:59","slug":"the-cosmic-covenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=7982","title":{"rendered":"The Cosmic Covenant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThis is part 2 of our review of The Cosmic Revelation<\/i> by Bede Griffiths.<\/p>\n

⇐ See Part 1<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Griffiths next tries to relate the Vedic Revelation to Biblical Revelation. Biblical history is punctuated with a series of covenants. The first one was God\u2019s covenant with Adam, which just means \u201cman\u201d. Since God was revealed to all mankind, Griffiths calls it the Cosmic Covenant. Its origin is in Paradise, which is that state where man is in harmony with nature and God.<\/p>\n

This harmony has been broken. For example, ecological issues reflect the disharmony of man with nature. Wars, crime, conflict, etc., reveal the lack of harmony of man with man. Finally, the communion with God has been lost. The loss of the primordial harmony is called Original Sin. Salvation, then, is the restoration of that primordial harmony.<\/p>\n

The next covenant was with Noah, from whose descendants all the nations of the world arose. As the father of mankind, this was a re-expression of the Cosmic Covenant. Thus, all the valid Traditions are rooted in that covenant. There are righteous pagans in the Bible, such as Enoch.<\/p>\n

Griffiths then turns to Melchizedek, the pagan priest and king of Salem. In his conversation with Abraham, Melchizedek appeals to the \u201cmost high God, the creator of heaven and earth.\u201d Griffiths takes this to mean that there was a revelation to the pagans, specifically mentioning the Amerindians and the Hindus. He makes the interesting point that Christ was a priest in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Hebrew priests starting with Aaron.<\/p>\n

Griffiths provides scriptural support for this claim. In Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans, we read that there are two sources of revelation to the pagans.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The creation of the world. Paul writes, \u201cHis invisible nature is made known by the visible things He has made.\u201d (Romans 1:20)<\/li>\n
  2. Within the Heart of man. Again, Paul writes, \u201cThe Pagans who have not the law of Moses have a law written in their hearts: their conscience accusing or perhaps excusing them until the day when God will judge the world by Jesus Christ.\u201d (Romans 2:14)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In other words, these are the revelations of the macrocosm and the microcosm, and are relatable to the Pythagorean and Hermetic initiations described by Valentin Tomberg in Letter VI of Meditations on the Tarot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    The Sky Father<\/h2>\n

    Early man had not acquired the habit of abstract thought, as his mode of thinking was more intuitive. As was pointed out earlier, he saw the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual worlds in their integrated wholeness. Mircea Eliade<\/strong>, in Patterns of Comparative Religion<\/em>, shows how primitive man could come to an almost total understanding of God simply by looking at the sky. Griffiths summarizes it this way:<\/p>\n

    \nConsequently, when he [early man] looked up at the sky, the sky was a revelation to him. It was not merely the physical phenomenon which we see; to him the sky had a psychological meaning and a spiritual meaning. It revealed the creator present in his creation.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Therefore, there are several things to be intuited.<\/p>\n