4 THE ETERNAL IDEAS

WITH regard to the identification of spirit with intellect, we noted in the preceding chapter that no one hesitates to speak of the 'Divine Intellect', which obviously implies a transposition of this term beyond the domain of manifestation; but this point deserves further attention, for ultimately it is here that the very basis for this identification is to be found. Let us immediately note that here again one can place oneself at different levels, according to whether one stops at the consideration of Being alone, or whether one goes beyond Being; but in any case it is obvious that when theologians consider the Divine Intellect or the Word as the 'place of possibles', they have in view only possibilities of manifestation, which as such are included in Being. The transposition that allows the shift from Being to the Supreme Principle no longer pertains to the domain of theology, but solely to that of pure metaphysics.

One might wonder whether this conception of the Divine Intellect is identical to Plato's 'intelligible world', or, in other words, whether the 'ideas' understood in the Platonic sense are the same as those contained eternally in the Word. In both cases, it is clearly a question of the 'archetypes' of manifested beings; however, at least at first glance, the 'intelligible world' might seem to correspond to the supra-formal order of manifestation rather than to that of pure Being, or, according to Hindu terminology, it would be identical to Buddhi envisaged in the Universal sense rather than to Ātmā, even were Ātmā taken in a sense restricted to the consideration of Being alone. Both points of view are of course perfectly legitimate,^[1] but, if such is the case, then the Platonic ‘ideas’ cannot properly be called ‘eternal’, for this word cannot be applied to anything that belongs to manifestation, even manifestation at its highest degree and closest to the Principle, whereas the ‘ideas’ contained in the Word are necessarily eternal, as is the Word, since whatever is of the principial order is absolutely permanent and immutable and admits of no kind of succession.^[2] Notwithstanding this, it appears to us quite probable that the passage from one of these points of view to the other must have remained possible for Plato himself, as in reality it still remains. We will not dwell further on this, however, preferring to leave to others the task of examining this question more closely, its interest being after all more historical than doctrinal. What is rather strange is that some people seem to consider the eternal ideas as mere ‘virtualities’ in relation to the manifested beings of which they are the principal ‘archetypes’. Here is a delusion that is doubtless due to the common distinction between the ‘possible’ and the ‘real’, a distinction which, as we explained elsewhere, could not have the least value from the metaphysical point of view.^[3] This delusion is all the more grave in that it leads to a real contradiction, and it is difficult to understand how it can go unnoticed. In fact, there can be nothing virtual within the Principle but, on the contrary, only the permanent actuality of all things in an ‘eternal present’, and it is this very actuality that constitutes the sole foundation of all existence. Still, there are those who push the misunderstanding so far that they seem to regard eternal ideas merely as kinds of images (which, let us note in passing, implies a further contradiction in wanting to introduce something of a formal nature even into the Principle), images that have no more real a connection with the beings themselves than would their reflected image in a mirror. This is strictly speaking a complete reversal of the relationship of the Principle with manifestation, which is too obvious to require further explanation. The truth is indeed very far from all such erroneous conceptions: the idea in question here is the very principle of the being; it is that which gives it all its reality and without which it would be only nothingness pure and simple. To maintain the contrary amounts to severing all links between the manifested being and the Principle, and if at the same time a real existence is attributed to the being, this existence cannot but be independent of the Principle, whether or not one wishes it, so that, as we said on another occasion,^[4] one inevitably ends up in the error of ‘association’. From the moment one recognizes that the existence of manifested beings in all their positive reality can only be a ‘participation’ in principial Being, there cannot be the slightest doubt about this matter. If one were to admit this ‘participation’ simultaneously with the so-called ‘virtuality’ of the eternal ideas, one would face yet another contradiction. What is in fact virtual is not our reality within the Principle, but only the awareness we may have of it as manifested beings, which is obviously something quite different; and it is only through metaphysical realization that this awareness of our true being, which is beyond and above all ‘becoming’, can become effective, that is, actualized into the awareness, not of something that might pass as it were from ‘potency’ to ‘act’, but rather an awareness of that which we really are principially and eternally, and this in the most absolutely real sense possible. Now, to relate what we have just said about eternal ideas to the manifested intellect, one must naturally turn once again to the doctrine of the sūtrātmā, regardless of the form under which it is expressed, for the various symbolisms traditionally used in this respect are basically perfectly equivalent. Thus, to return to the representation we used earlier, it can be said that the Divine Intellect is the spiritual Sun, while the manifested intellect is one of its rays;^[5] and there can be no more discontinuity between the Principle and manifestation than there is between the sun and its rays.^[6] It is thus by the intellect that every being in all its states of manifestation is directly attached to the Principle, and this is because the Principle, insofar as it eternally contains the 'truth' of all beings, is itself none other than the Divine Intellect.^[7]