Béla Hamvas: Scientia Sacra I – Book VI

II. The Charioteer

1. The charioteer of Delphoi. Antarjamin. Krisna

There is a statue in Delphoi from the end of the Archaic age. The statue is usually called the Charioteer
of Delphoi. A young man stands in a robe almost reaching his ankles, he seems to hold reins in his
hand; the wrinkles of his robe are as even as the furrows of the columns; his stance is unswerving,
knowledge and strength sit on his face. No Archaic statue says so much with it’s eyes, with this
cloudless, pure glance. The straight stance and rigour of the statue reaches it’s zenit in the eyes.
Inexorable? Yes. Because he is the driver. The charioteer. There is nothing tender or indulgent, soft or
emotional in these eyes. Yet reason cannot be compared to the human sense, which always carries
something of speculation, interest, relative and Ego. This is the sureness of reason completely aware.
The eyes are the charioteers, not the man, not the body, not the hands. Probably the sculptor who
carved the statue was not under the influence of the spiritual caste’s orders, as artists in Egypt, Mexico
or Judea created under the command of the spiritual caste. Yet the sculptor did not become secular,
Classic, as they say, since his inspiration is purely spiritual.

There isn’t a moment’s concern regarding who this charioteer is. „The inner charioteer, says the Veda,
who controls this world, the beyond and all the worlds from the inside.” Antarjamin in Sanskrit.
Zarathustra speaks: „I am the prelate, the one who drives the first chariot, the first man.” In Iranian
language: ratha esthar. Sankara writes: „By his virtues both in the world of the gods and on earth, he is
the charioteer.” And he adds: „Only the the Atman, the immortal Self can be the inner charioteer.” The
Katha Upanishad: „Know that you are a charioteer and your material body is the chariot.” The Zohar:
„Nature is the chariot, the celestial man is the charioteer.””The celestial man is divine reason.” This
divine reason is Toth, Hermes, Mercurius, Manu, Quetzalcoatl, Manko Kapak. „Ruling – speaks the Li
Ki – is driving a chariot. The strenght of the spirit are the reins for the ruler to lead the people; the
state official is the bender, the wip is the punishment. The charioteer is The Sky’s Son. The captain and
the advisor are the left and right hands.” In Peru, Egypt and India on grand celebrations the king used
to parade among the same externals: on a chariot, with reins in his hands, above him a square
baldachin, below his feet a round carpet with the twelve images of the zodiac and the twenty-eight
images of the Moon zodiac, all the image surrounded by a wheel, which is none other, than the cross
(swastika), symbol of the eternal cycle, symbol of the world’s eternity: on the four sides the four
seasons and the four eras: images of the golden-, silver-, copper- and the iron age, with the bell of
world peace on the top.

By all chance these images are not the product of casual similarity, especially as these are not images.
In the Archaic age nothing depends on the images, but on reason, reason depends on analogy, namely
on analogy with the cycles of life. The correspondance is that there lives an entity who holds the reins
of earthly life in his hands and drives the chariot of life. This is the antarjamin: celestial reason,
Hermes, Toth, Quetzalcoatl, this the ratha esthar, Manu: Man, the universal divine man, the ancient,
eternal and first man: divine intelligence. He is the unswerving, watchful, lucid who is knowledge and
strength, who is inexorable, because he is the charioteer. The body, the nature, the matter, the earth, the
state, the people: the chariot. Reason is the charioteer, the one who knows not the tender emotions, the
vain Ego, selfish interest and assertive speculation. He is the absolute eye: vision; cloudless, constant
and upright vigilance. He is the atman, the immortal Self , charioteer on the earth and in the realm of
the gods: above him the starlit sky, around him the constant change of eras and seasons, yet he is
enduring, immovable and definite knowledge. He is the Sky’s Son, ruling, charioteeing. The bells of
world peace sound above his head, since knowledge does not know conflict, duality, splitting, war,
dissonance. This is the antarjamin, the charioteer.

2. The manifestation of the One in human life

The charioteer is the king.

There are two manifestations of his governance:
rule and power. Rule is inactive spiritual guidance; power is active governance. The charioteer is
beyond rule and power.
Spiritual rule is excercised by the spiritual state, the brāhmin; active rule is excercised by the
governing state, the ḳsātriya.
̣
The king is more than a brāhman and more than a ḳsātriya;
̣ the
king’s governance is more than spiritual, inactive - and more than active. The charioteer is The Sky’s
Son, who exceeds human order, like a column, alone, uncomparable to others, who is only vigilance,
reason, knowledge and strength. Who only looks and sees as the Charioteer of Delphoi. In China they
say: he is looking southwards. To look southwards means: to live. The king is the only entity on earth
that lives; compared to him everybody is only matter and a tool, rein or whip, left or right hand. He is
the eye. Rule and power are two, rivalry and degree, only two halves of the One. The king is One – the
unexplainable and the inaccessible, the manifestation of celestial above human reason, the highest brick
on top of the pyramid, which has no antithesis or polarity: it’s polarity is the world itself, nature, the
people. The king is the only One opposing the crowd, the Centrum, the Heart and the Head.
Not the people, the crowd, the earth is the understandable and natural and not the One, the king is the
incomprhensible and unnatural. As not the cosmos, nature, the stars, the multitude of souls is the
understandable and the One God is the incomprehensible. The One God is natural, evident and the stars
and the multitude of souls is the wonderful, strange and unnatural. Because the One is what and who it
is: it is. He is existence itself, the One – compared to which and who everything else is only
promiscuous. The king: he is. The king is the natural. The king is the logical, evident, clear, because he
is One and compared to him the multitude of people, castes and states, words and laws, history and
events are subordinated and marginal contingencies. What is outside the king is ony the chariot, the
reins, the horse. He is the charioteer.

In the modern period the only thing a king could say of himself was: „I am the state”. This is
completely false. False because it is small and scarce. The king is more than the state in the way God is
more than the world. The king is the sacred person who shares the same relation with the state as God
shares with the created world. Humanity without a king is „multitude”, as Herakleitos says and human
life is meaningless chaos.

3. The Tao te king and royal initiation

Historical man thinks of the Tao te king as a philosophy or yoga-system, or in the best case as
metaphysics, but always thinks that the Path that Tao means can be the everyone's path. As if anyone
would have the right to take this path, or as if anyone could walk this path anytime. The source of the
problem is the same as everywhere and in many places: the historical man has no sense of hierarchy, he
cannot make any difference between human ranks. This is why the idea of equality has emerged, which
totally undermined the cummunity values. It was not the idea of equality that destroyed social
differences, it was due to the numbness towards the rank-values in human life that every man has lost
his order andwhile maintaining the differences of his spiritual self, while becoming equal to all others
on the surface. Historical man thinks that Tao is a path anyone can take and anyone can walk.

Tao is the king’s path: the path he’s being led on by the charioteer. Tao te king is the book of royal
initiation. It’s ascetical teaching, yoga, philosophy and metaphysics are secondary. A greater secret is
revealed in the Tao. Tao is the path of humanity, the charioteer’s path, only the king can take it and the
king can walk it.

Incomprehensible and inexplicable mistery appears in the king, which is so poignantly different from
all creatures and things on earth that when one faces it, he starts to question the authenticity of his
experience or his own sanity. Nothing can be compared to it, nothing can justify his existence;
moreover, earthly life is the one that needs to be justified before him and the multitude of creatures,
things are the ones that lose their meaning upon his appearance. „One looks, but cannot see it; it’s
name: the equal. One listens, but cannot hear it; it’s name: the unpalpable. One holds it, but does not
bear it; it’s name: the one above all…It constantly acts and cannot be named…it is called a formless
shape and the invisible apparent… a phenomena without appearance.” What the king must know first
is that he is the only one with substantive reality in earthly life. The king’s liaison with the land, people
and with all material nature is the same as the soul’s relation to the body; the same as the relation of the
immortal Self to the temporal earthly Self. Only the atman is reality, atman is existance, all else is
passing, a mirage, false, a dream and magic. Only the soul is real, the body is a caducous image. Only
the king is real; the people, the state, the multitude and the earth are like corporal reality. The king is
the immortal Self of the people, he is the soul of the country; the monarch is reality: the antarjamin, the
inner charioteer. „If one from the folk dies – tells the Li Ki -, they say: he has died. Nothing else. If a
state official dies, they say: he recieves no payment anymore. If somebody dies of the great ones, they
say: it’s time to sober up. If the king dies, it is ruin.”

„There are four greatnesses in the world: the Sky, the Earth, the Tao and the fourth is the king.”

The king does not act. The king exists. He is existance: the atman – the immortal entity and Self, the
antarjamin, the presence of divine man on earth. „Conquer the world by action? None have prevailed.
The world is a spiritual thing which cannot be acted with. Who acts it, only spoils it; who keeps it,
loses it.” This is the second thing a king has to know. „High existance has no aim, does not act. Low
life is only composed of aims and only acts and acts again.” – „Ruling the state requires discipline;
weapons of war require strong practice, but the kingdom is only created by that, who is distantiated
from all actionality.”

This is what the Tao te king has to say. This is monarchy. This is royal initiation. Know that you are the
king, the charioteer and nothing and no one has reality beside you in this world. You are existance. You
are reality. You are the immortal, divine soul, the only person, the only subject. And know that you
have only one duty: to exist. „To turn Southwards and look.” You should see everything, you should
know everything – but not from the reports, from informers and spies. You must know it the way that
when it happens, you are already long aware of it. You are the sleepless – you walk the path, you lead.
Governance is not an action. Governance is existance itself. Charioteering is not an action. Driving the
chariot is walking the path and to walk the path is to exist – exist with divine reason, clear as the light
of day and with complete watchfulness. The fact that you are the only one that exists, sees, you are the
one that knows, makes you a power. This power is not an action. It is radiant existance. The folk shines
in your light, the country lives of your strength; fruits and grain grow at your command; the sun sets
and rises at your word. But you should do nothing and say nothing, only give, but only yourself. This is
what they call a blessing. You are the blessing in the world, the absolving touch of divine reason. „The
Tao of the One: blessing.”

That which is not Tao, is only pointless, madness-like chaos. „Outside the path everyone is trackless.”
If life leaves the path, then life itself is lost. Law? „The more is forbidden, the more is the poverty of
the people.” Richness? „The more tools comfort has, the more chaos grows withing the state.”
Education? „The more talented people there are, the more contradictions multiply.” „The more laws
and ordenances there are, the more thiefs and filches there will be.” „ When people are hard to lead,
then they know too much. So one that leads it’s country with knowledge robs his own land; who rules
his country without knowledge is his own land’s blessing. Who knows both has found the celestial law.”
„Rivers and lakes can recieve reverence from the valleys because they know how to remain
underneath. This is why they are the kings.” Tao is not a law, not a right, not ruling, not power, not
practice, not a theme for talking, it is unspeakable. Tao means Path. The Path of Life. Tao means: to
exist – to live uncorruptedly, carelessly, childlike, simply and directly. „The whole world says Tao is
wonderful. But it seems inadequate for realization. This is exactly what is wonderful in it, it is
inadequate for realisation. Because adaptability leads to fragmentation. There are three riches: love…
complacence…and humbleness. Love makes a man brave, complacence makes him generous;
humbleness makes a man capable of ruling.”