Booklet of Contemplative Philosophy - Ran Lahav
Contemplative Philosophy
principles, Techniques, Texts
This booklet was prepared by Ran Lahav for the First International Retreat of Contemplative Philosophy, organized by Ran Lahav and Jose Barrientos in Chipiona, Spain, June 2005.
Contents of Booklet
Introduction: What is Contemplative Philosophy?
Part 1: Principles Contemplative Philosophy
Part 2: Techniques of Contemplative Philosophy
Preparation for contemplation: Voice Meditation
The Discernment Circle
Silent Lesson
Guided Philosophical Imagery
Philosophical Drawings
Slow Reading
Philosophical Partners
Part 3: Texts for Philosophical Contemplation
Topic 1:Contemplation and Philosophy
Topic 2: The Self and Its Depths
Topic 3: Words, Silence and Beyond
Topic 4: The Ultimate and Ultimate Concern
Topic 5: Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge
Introduction
What is Contemplative Philosophy?
Standard academic philosophy focuses on analyzing and developing theoretical ideas. It encourages us to use our reasoning, and to leave the rest of our personality uninvolved. Even 'applied philosophy' attempts to develop ideas in the abstract, and only then to apply the finished product to concrete life.
Contemplative philosophy seeks to engage our entire being. Here, Plato's cave allegory is useful. The allegory illustrates, first, that the role of philo-sophia is to call the person to transcend the everyday level of understanding (the shadows) towards a deeper dimension of life and reality. Second, it emphasizes that the process of philosophizing is not that of theorizing in the abstract, but that of turning towards those deeper aspects of reality, encountering them directly and opening ourselves to them. Third, the process is not limited to a certain faculty (e.g., reason) within the person, but involves the entire person: the entire person must turn around towards the light and walk out of the cave. And fourth, the power that induces the person to turn around is the Platonic Eros: the yearning to get closer to the Real.
In accordance with Plato's allegory, contemplative philosophy seeks to engage the person as a whole, not just the faculty of reasoning. Its aim is wisdom, which implies openness of understanding to realms beyond our limited and self-centered perspective, towards new layers of being. Philosophizing is not a tool for analyzing and simplifying and solving problems, but on the contrary, a way of opening ourselves to the infinite depths and complexities of reality.
Such a philosophy is contemplative in the sense that it requires us to open ourselves and listen and respond from our inner depth. It calls us to transcend the superficial division between reason and emotion, and to arouse our capacity to understand from the center of our existence.
In this process, philosophical ideas and texts offer us the words for new ways of understanding. We treat a philosophical idea or text not as an objective theory that attempts to describe reality the way it is, like a scientific theory, but rather as one of the voices of reality that we can listen to. We do not argue whether a philosophical idea is right or wrong, but rather try to see what understanding it arouses in us.
In this sense, contemplative philosophy can help make life deeper. It can show us that our world is more than a collection of indifferent facts, that we can take part in those hidden dimensions of reality, and that we can explore them together in a philosophical companionship.
Part 1
Principles of Contemplative Philosophy
a. Contemplative philosophy as philosophizing from our inner being
To do contemplative philosophy is to encounter philosophical ideas in a deep personal way, by relating to them not from reason alone but from the depth of our being. Contemplative philosophy requires us to listen inwardly and be open to the endless horizons of human reality. It is, therefore, not an already-defined method or doctrine, but an open-ended process of personal exploration.
By way of contrast, Western philosophy has tended to focus on analyzing and developing theories in the abstract. Although some important philosophers (such as Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Marcel and others) revolted against this trend, much of the Western tradition encourages us to use a specific faculty - usually our reason, sometimes a special kind of intuition - and leave the rest of our personality uninvolved. Even 'applied philosophy' attempts to develop ideas theoretically, and only then to apply the finished product to concrete life.
Contemplative philosophy seeks to engage more central and deep aspects of our being. Here, Plato's cave allegory is useful. The allegory illustrates, first, that the role of philo-sophia is to call the person to transcend the everyday level of understanding (the shadows) towards a deeper understanding of life and reality. Second, it emphasizes that the process of philosophizing is not that of reasoning about the light, or theorizing in the abstract, but that of directly encountering deeper realities and opening ourselves to them. Third, the process is not limited to a certain faculty (e.g., reason) within the person, but involves the entire person: the entire person must turn around towards the light and walk out of the cave. And fourth, the power that induces the person to turn around is the Platonic Eros: the yearning for the Real.
In accordance with Plato's allegory, contemplative philosophy seeks to involve the person as a whole, not just the faculty of reasoning. Its aim is wisdom, which implies openness of understanding to realms beyond our limited and self-centered perspective, towards new dimensions of being. Philosophizing is not used as a tool for analyzing and simplifying and solving problems, but on the contrary, as a way of opening ourselves to the infinite depths and complexities of reality.
Such a philosophy is contemplative in the sense that it requires us to open ourselves and 'listen' and respond from our inner depth. It calls us to transcend the superficial division between reason and emotion, and to arouse our capacity to understand from our inner being.
In this process, philosophical ideas and texts can help us to deepen and enrich our understanding. We treat a philosophical idea or text not as an objective theory that attempts to describe reality the way it is, like a scientific theory, but rather as one of the 'voices' of reality that we can listen and respond to. We do not argue whether a philosophical idea is right or wrong, but rather try to see what it says in us, and what understanding it arouses in us.
In this sense, contemplative philosophy can arouse in us transformative insights and help make life deeper. It can help us take part in hidden dimensions of meaning and reality, and explore them together in philosophical companionship.
b. Are there guidelines in contemplative philosophy?
One might wonder: What does it mean to contemplate philosophically? What does it mean to relate to a text from the center of our being? What kind of understanding do we hope to achieve?
It may be tempting to respond to these questions by specifying a set of principles and definitions, or even a theory of contemplative philosophy. This, however, would set fixed boundaries to contemplative philosophy and would enclose it within a well-defined definition. It would therefore betray the spirit of contemplative philosophy, which is always an open-ended investigation, always a personal exploration that seeks to go beyond all previously known methods, assumptions, or preconceptions.
This means that whatever we might want to say about contemplative philosophy would always remain a pointer to further investigation, an idea to be transcended, a line in an ongoing dialogue, but never a final bottom line. This does not imply that we can say nothing about contemplative philosophy. We can say things that could help others to direct their attention in certain ways, inspire them to open their hearts and minds, suggest to them tools and techniques for pacifying their thoughts and 'listening' internally, and point out new ways of relating to a text.
This is precisely the role of the ideas and techniques that appear in this book. They should be seen not as authoritative statements, but as pointers that are likely to facilitate our contemplative encounter with philosophical ideas. As such, they are always open to modification or addition.
c. The Philosophical-Contemplative Stance
In contemplative philosophy I try to philosophize from myself, not about myself. Unlike many traditional philosophies, I am not a detached onlooker who examines a philosophical idea from the outside, as an objective observer. I let my inner self 'listen' to philosophical ideas and to their various meanings and implications.
This means that when I do contemplative philosophy, I should assume a certain inner stance, one that is different from my ordinary attitude when I examine a scientific theory, or argue on a political issue, or read a newspaper.
First, I listen. I open myself to let the 'voices' of philosophical ideas speak inside me. Sometimes the original source of these philosophical 'voices' is my own inner depth, at other times it may be another person, or a philosophical text. Listening, whether inwardly or to another person, means that I keep silent, hold back my tendency to talk, and open inside me a silent space for an understanding (mine or somebody else's) to speak. Thus, when I read a philosophical text, I am not quick to fill the silence with the chatter of reasoning, or to judge the text, but am careful to discern how the text speaks in me and how my deeper self reacts.
Second, I let different philosophical voices speak without preoccupying myself as to whether they are correct or incorrect in some objective or universal sense. After all, even philosophical voices that are theoretically unacceptable often have important things to say to us. They may shed an interesting light on the issue, or give voice to certain parts of our personality, or express an important consideration or perspective. I therefore treat a philosophical understanding as if it was a musical phrase in a concert rather than a scientific theory: The main issue about it is not whether it is theoretically true or false, but what meanings it intimates to me. To be sure, objective truth may sometimes be at issue - when the voice of reason speaks - but that voice is only one of many others. There is no longer only one criterion for preferring a philosophical idea, namely theoretical truth, but many.
Third, I accept the possibility that several philosophical voices may resonate in me at the same time, even if they contradict each other theoretically. For example, something in me may resonate with Kantian ethics, while another side in me, perhaps inspired by a different set of experiences, may resonate to the utilitarianist voice. I do not force myself to choose one of them as 'my' opinion, as my official party-line so to speak, for the two can continue to live side by side and interact in a variety of ways. This does not mean that I must accept every possible voice. Obviously, I can hear a philosophical idea and give voice to my reaction that the idea is revolting or arrogant or simply contradictory. But reactions, too, are voices in the overall symphony.
Fourth, I allow the philosophical investigation to remain open, without trying to reach a conclusion or bottom line. Contemplative philosophy is a never-ending process, and is not geared towards a final statement or finished theory. If, for example, we discuss the meaning of love, I do not try to arrive at a theoretical statement that summarizes what love is. A philosophical understanding is like a musical phrase in the symphony of reality, or like a line in an ongoing dialogue. It is not a final product, but a step in a process. This does not mean that I must constantly change philosophical ideas, for I may find deep meaning in a certain understanding and thus let it speak in me strongly and for a long time. The point is that our philosophical stance leaves the door open for an ongoing dynamic plurality of voices, and does not look for a final statement.
Lastly, I am aware of the fact that my various understandings may come from different depths inside me or in others. Some philosophical 'voices' may come from superficial levels of my personality, or even from masks and role-playing, while others may express understandings of deeper and more central parts in me that are more attuned with reality. And although I listen to them all, I know that they are not all of an equal nature.
In sum, in contemplative philosophy I listen to the plurality of philosophical voices of human reality that rise from within me or reach me from the outside, and give voice to the ongoing dialogue between them. In this process I deepen my philosophical understanding of the complex symphony of human reality.
d. The language of contemplative philosophy
The previous section suggests that in contemplative philosophy it is helpful to think of the philosophizing process in terms of the metaphor of 'voices of reality'. This metaphor is markedly different from the common language of traditional philosophy.
Much of traditional philosophy (with notable exceptions) deals primarily with theories about reality: theories about the nature of the soul, about morality, about knowledge, etc. The fundamental metaphor here is that of a picture, or map of reality. Just as a map maps a given landscape, just as a picture mirrors a portion of the world, in the same way a philosophical theory is supposed to portray the landscape of reality. We can say that the fundamental metaphor here is visual: a philosophical theory is like a picture.
This seemingly innocuous metaphor involves several hidden assumptions. First, it implies that as a philosopher, my relationship to the world is that of looking at it, from the outside, as an unengaged observer. Second, I am expected to put aside my everyday life, my personal worries and joys and hopes and moods, and to examine the world from an objective, uninvolved perspective. I am also expected to use one single faculty, one specific aspect of my personality: my - mind's eyes - often identified as my reason. Furthermore, the goal of my philosophizing is to produce a bottom line, a final product: a theory. That product is evaluated in terms of one central criterion: whether or not it is an accurate picture of reality.
The problem with this visual metaphor is that it detaches philosophizing from most of my everyday life and personality. Instead of attending to my personal, dynamic and multi-faceted encounters with life, it uses abstract reasoning to squeeze human reality into one static picture, one impersonal theory. Such a philosophizing, being far-removed from my actual way of being, is not likely to develop me as a person. As long as it talks about life from the outside, and ignores what life is like for me as a living person, it is going to have a limited capacity to transform me and help me grow in wisdom. A philosophizing that is aimed at a personal transformation must engage my entire being. It must be a dynamic process of an ongoing personal dialogue with life, a process that expresses the many aspects of my life and of human reality in general. Such a philosophizing should be done from within life rather than about life.
It is therefore helpful, when doing contemplative philosophy, to avoid the visual map metaphor. It is more helpful to think of any given philosophical idea not as a picture about reality, but as one of many ways in which reality reveals itself in our lives. Reality - my personal reality, the realities of other individuals, and human reality in general - reveals itself not just through our reasoning, but also through our experiences, hopes, fears, worries, and every aspect of life.
As the previous section suggests, the 'voice' metaphor is especially appropriate to express this multi-layered and multifaceted manifestation of human reality. We may say that reality 'speaks' to us and in us, and that it does so in many voices. Instead of the traditional approach of reason speaking in one single voice, we should think of a symphony of different philosophical voices that emerge in many ways and forms from the infinite horizons of human reality. Here we may regard traditional thinkers, such as Descartes or Nietzsche or Sartre, as individuals who expressed specific voices, each one in accordance with his own encounter with life. These philosophers expressed these voices beautifully and with great skill and sensitivity. Yet, these are only specific voices in the overall human concert. Some of these voices are for me deep or meaningful or salient, others are insignificant or awkward, some arouse in me voices of acceptance while others arouse in me indignation, but they are all part of the human choir.
Part 2
Techniques of Contemplative Philosophy
If contemplative philosophy is to engage my entire being, then it cannot be limited to abstract discussions about life. I must be fully engaged in the process of 'listening' and 'giving voice' to philosophical ideas.
The following is a list of techniques that have been found helpful for contemplative philosophy. Needless to say, some of them may work better for some people and certain circumstances, while others may work better for other cases and people. The basic idea in all them is that the contemplators open up an inner "space" or "channel" that is free of their own ideas and inner chatter, and attempt to give voice to understandings that arise from a deeper inner point.
Preparing for contemplation:
Voice Meditation
Before starting with Contemplative Philosophy, it is usually helpful to first take a few moments of silence from the noise and hassles of everyday life and adopt a more quiet and attentive inner stance. If our goal is to contemplate from a deeper layer of our being, then we first need to disengage ourselves from our busy mind and to dwell deeper inside ourselves, underneath our chattering and clever external self.
Voice Meditation is a helpful tool for this purpose. In this technique I regard my body—or more accurately, the organs that hold the column of air in my body—as a metaphor for my entire being. As my focus slowly descends from my nose and mouth down to my abdomen and buttocks and even further below, I experience myself descending from my normal superficial stance deeper into myself, into layers of being that are deeper than my familiar everyday self. The result of the exercise is a sense of centeredness which stays with me for a while, and enables me to re-center myself in reference to the bodily column of air inside me.
To start Voice Meditation, we sit comfortably on the floor or on a chair, our back comfortably erect. Our hands and legs can rest in various ways, but they should be in symmetric positions. It is best to close our eyes, in order to facilitate concentration. Breathing should be somewhat slower than normal, although this slowness should not require any special effort. It might be a good idea to try inhaling through the nose, and exhaling through the mouth.
After a few moments of silence, the session-director directs the participants to focus their attention on their breath, specifically on the air as it goes in and out. We start by focusing on our head and on the way the breathed air reverberates in it. A few moments later the session-director indicates that we now move our focus to our nostrils and to the passage of air in them; then we move our focus to our mouth; then to the opening of the larynx (where the mouth cavity meets the larynx); then to the bottom of the larynx (where the larynx meets the chest-box), to the chest, the upper abdomen (right below the chest, where the belly comes in and out while breathing), and the lower abdomen (the bottom of the column of air).
Each of these steps may take as little as three breaths, or as long as several minutes. Sometimes it is useful to encourage the participants to make a humming sound in order to help them focus on the air movement.
Throughout the process it is important to avoid a common tendency: to experience ourselves as internally looking at the organ in question, or as turning an inner eye towards the organ in question. This attitude should be avoided, because it splits us into an observer and the observed. The appropriate stance is not to look at a given organ, but to experience it from the inside: I experience my throat or chest or stomach as if I resided in them. My consciousness does not look at these organs, but is, rather, present in them.
The following last two steps are the highlight of the process: After descending to the bottom of our abdomen, we descend further down into our buttocks area. The buttocks react to the breathing, and the muscles in them participate in breathing and in making sounds. However, they are already below the column of air, and in this sense descending to this area is associated with the experience of starting to descend below ourselves, as it were.
Lastly, we make the final descent: From the buttocks we go down to a point below our body, underneath us. Metaphorically, we now dwell below our personal selves, at the root of our existence, at point that is prior to us, at a point of silence and wisdom.
There is no need to discuss here the exact meanings of the metaphors of "being underneath ourselves" or "the root of our existence" or "residing at the point of silence and wisdom." Some metaphors are most efficacious when left suggestive but unexplained. The point is that our consciousness is now centered, and is broader than our superficial chattering mind. It is now ready to engage in contemplative philosophy.
The Discernment Circle
The aim of the Discernment Circle is to help us listen to various understandings: to listen to a philosophical text, to other participants, and to our own inner understandings of life. Listening here means that I let philosophical voices speak and be heard inside me without imposing on them my own agenda or ideas or judgments.
The Discernment Circle is based on the technique of "Council," which is said to have its roots in traditional American Indian tribal meetings. Here it is modified and adapted to the context of philosophizing.
The participants (ideally about 8-15) sit in a circle. The session-director places at the center the "Talking Piece"—a small object with some aesthetic or symbolic qualities that can comfortably be held in one's hand.
Before beginning, after a short centering exercise, we may symbolically light a candle and spend a few seconds in silence to delve on the intention of listening and speaking from the heart.
To begin the Discernment Circle, the director picks up the Talking Piece, reads a short philosophical text and raises a relevant philosophical issue (or theme), preferably formulated in the first-person (e.g., what is my 'real' self?). If necessary, the circle spends several minutes in making sure that everybody understands the direct, literal meaning of the text. The leader then places the Talking Piece back at the center, and the circle is now open for everybody to participate in giving voice to their inner understandings, and in listening to others. The result is an open-ended polyphonic 'concert' of voices that express a tapestry of understandings on the issue.
In order to guide the participants to the proper inner attitude, they must follow the following six procedural, dialogical, and philosophical rules and 'intentions':
A. PROCEDURAL RULES:
1. The Talking-Piece rule: A participant is allowed to speak only while holding the Talking-Piece. Nobody is allowed to speak without it. This means that participants will sometimes find themselves wanting to say something but unable to do so; which means that they will need to put themselves in a listening mode, rather than in the everyday mode of chatter or argumentation.
The director may decide on different ways of using the Talking-Piece: passing it from hand to hand clockwise or counterclockwise (in which case a participant may choose to keep silent and pass on the piece to the next person), or placing the piece at the center of the circle for anyone who wishes to speak to pick it up whenever feeling ready.
2. The Confidentiality Rule: As participants we agree that whatever will be said in the circle must remain confidential after the end of the circle, unless a participant explicitly indicates that his or her words can be repeated outside the circle.
B. DIALOGICAL INTENTIONS: In addition to these two procedural rules, we should try to adhere to the following 'intentions' regarding how to listen and to speak. The term 'intention' indicates that we should try to do our best, even if we are not always going to be fully succeed.
3. The Intention of Listening: In everyday life, we do not fully listen. While another person speaks we usually have our own thoughts and memories and reactions. We may be thinking, for example, "I too had an experience just like that!", or, "I don't agree with what you say," or, "A good point! I should remember to tell it to my friend." At other times we may find ourselves planning what to say when it is our turn to speak, or simply be lost in our unrelated thoughts and concerns. The result is that we are not really receptive to the other.
The Intention of Listening therefore asks us to try and put aside such interfering thoughts and images, to push out of our heart all tendencies to evaluate the other's ideas, to judge or interpret. While another person speaks, we open inside ourselves an empty space, one that is not occupied by our selves and ideas. It is as if we vacate in our being an empty arena for the speaking voice to occupy.
4. The Intention of Giving Voice: When it is our turn to speak, how do we speak? In everyday life we usually talk from a superficial part of ourselves: from our well-rehearsed ideology, for example, or from our detached reason. At other times, what speaks through our mouth is some hidden motivation: our anger at the other person, or our wish to impress others, to justify ourselves, to manipulate others into admiring us, and so on. The result is that the voice of our deeper understandings of life, being covered with such agendas and motivations, is not heard.
According to the Intention of Giving Voice we give voice to an understanding of life that is living in us at the moment. We try to speak from the deeper layer of our being; we allow our deep understandings speak spontaneously, without rehearsing them in advance, without imposing on them an agenda, without embellishing them so as to make them appear nice, without tarnishing them with hidden motivations and calculations and self-serving emotions.
C. PHILOSOPHIZING INTENTIONS:
5. The Polyphonic Intention: Our aim is to create a 'concert' of voices in which a rich variety of understandings interact and interweave and enrich each other, not a linear discussion aimed at a definite conclusion or bottom line. Thus, when hearing various understandings being expressed, we try to allow them all to exist side by side, without attempting to disprove or disqualify any of them.
This is very different from standard philosophical discussions. Many traditional philosophies are geared towards finding specific solutions to issues and giving reasons for choosing one theory rather than others. According to the Polyphonic Intention, on the other hand, we assume that virtually all understandings have something to say; they all have some place in the overall concert of understanding. This does not mean egalitarianism, or the 'anything goes' of relativism or subjectivism. Obviously, some understandings will occupy a more central part in our world while others will be only remote echoes; some will shed light on a broader scope of our lives, while others will come into play only in very specific issues or situations; some will be very meaningful or beautiful or tempting, while others will be bizarre or appalling or frightening. But all of them together will participate in our overall understanding of the issue in question.
This means that we refrain from judging philosophical ideas as true or false, valid or invalid. We give room—though not necessarily equal room—to all of them to speak side by side in a polyphony of voices. We may express our personal reaction to an idea—e.g., moral indignation, or concern about an apparent contradiction—but not attempt to disqualify it or judge it 'objectively', from a detached point of view.
6. The Intention of Critical Examination: If we are not to judge for objective rightness or wrongness, then in what sense is the conversation a critical philosophical examination?
The answer is that we investigate the qualities, meanings and implications of various understandings. We may explore an understanding in terms of the experiences from which it emerges, examine what it implies about life, investigate its basic assumptions or concepts, look at how it relates to other understandings, or in short, listen to the meaning of its voice in the context of the overall polyphonic concert of understanding.
Ending the Circle: The Circle can end at a pre-determined time, or when the session-director feels that the conversation has reached a certain completion. Before separating, we take a few moments of silence to look at the process which we have just undergone. Then, in a last round of the Talking-Piece, we share with others our meaningful moments and understandings, and what understandings we are taking with us for further exploration in the future.
Silent Lesson
The Silent Lesson' is really a version of a traditional technique that was developed in the Middle Ages by Catholic monks of the Carthusian order, called Lectio Divina (divine reading). The main reason for renaming it here is that the term 'Divina'—divine or holy—may be inappropriate for contemplating on a philosophical text.
The Silent Lesson helps us to silently read a short text and listen inwardly to voices of understanding that arise in us. The text functions as the central axis of the contemplation, thus helping to maintain inner silence, centeredness and attentiveness. As a result we may experience the text speaking to us and raising within us new understandings, hence the name 'silent lesson'.
There are several versions of Silent Lesson, some for a single reader, some for a group of discerners. In the following particular version, the basic idea is that we read together a short text, then discern in it a wide array of meanings, and then organize that array into a focused understanding, by concentrating on one sentence or concept.
More specifically:
1. Preparation: We sit in a circle, each with a copy of the text. Together we read the text and make sure that we all understand its superficial, literal meaning. The central text should be of about one or two paragraphs in length. It may be embedded in a larger text of one or two pages.
2. Attaining the inner stance of Receptive Attention: In order to enter a contemplative mood, we do a short meditation or centering exercise. We attempt to reach an inner stance of receptive attention and silence from our chattering- and thinking-mind. In other words, we attempt to 'make present' in our consciousness whatever is happening inside us, particularly understandings that rise from their depth. In a sense, we no longer dwell in our everyday chattering thoughts, as we usually do, but rather deeper inside, in what might be called our deeper being, or our inner point of silence. We no longer identify with our busy and noisy mind, but are now a vessel, an empty space, a channel for deep insights to speak through our larynx and lips. We are no longer the self who controls and speaks and decides, but are receptive and available for whatever will rise from our depths. If superficial thoughts or images pass our mind, we neither identify with them nor fight them, but simply let them pass as an irrelevant background voice.
3. First reading: The session-director now slowly reads the central text. Then, another participant may read the text again, and this reading may be repeated several times. Throughout the readings, we all maintain receptive attention, which means that we do not attempt to analyze, just let the text speak again and again within us.
4. Developing a field of meaning: We now want to unfold a rich network of meanings that arise from the original text. At this stage the point is not organization or focus, but breadth and richness. It is best to break down the text to several phrases, and to work on each one separately.
Specifically, the session-director now focuses on one important phrase from the text (a sentence, part of it, an expression, or a single word), and then invites the participants to speak by stating: "What do these words say to me?"
At this point the circle is opened for everybody to speak freely, without turns, in order to express understandings that rise inside them. These can be general and impersonal understandings (e.g., that the self is constituted by our encounters with other people), or personal philosophical understandings, expressing one's own encounter with a philosophical idea (e.g., that I tend to be aware of myself when I feel threatened by authority figures, such as my boss). In any case, it is important that the speakers follow the following guidelines, or intentions:
1. I do not speak from my chattering thoughts, but from my silent receptive attentiveness. I give voice, as it were, to my depths, allowing deep understandings to speak in me. I may therefore find myself sitting in silence for a long time, if no understanding speaks in me.
2. Every word that I utter is precious. I articulate my words clearly and concisely. I do not indulge in repetition, elaborate explanations, side-comments or unnecessary chatter.
3. I do not talk about the philosophical understanding, but express it. I do not argue about it, reason, prove or disprove, or express reservations. I simply state the understanding that speaks in me.
4. The subject-matter of my words is not me, but the philosophical understanding itself. Therefore, I avoid mentioning myself. I avoid expressions such as: "I was thinking that…", "It seems to me…", "I wonder whether…", and similar ways of talking about myself (unless I am the topic of my understanding).
5. I try to relate to what others have said before me. However, I do this not by commenting about their understandings, but by continuing them. I do not judge, evaluate, agree or disagree, but rather try to express an understanding that further develops the previous understandings so far. In this sense, I no longer focus on the philosophical text itself, but rather on the entire field of meanings so far—the original text plus what has been said so far. An appropriate metaphor here can be that of a jazz concert, where each player picks up on a previous theme and improvises a continuation.
If we follow these intentions, it is likely that there will be long pauses between utterances. (If an ongoing conversation takes place, we are probably not following the intentions). After a while the session-director picks up another phrase from central text, and again asks the group what these words say to them.
The director has the important role of using questions to direct the process. For example, the director can steer the process in a personal direction ("What do these words say to me personally, about my life?"), or in an intersubjective direction ("What do these words tell us about ourselves here, in this group?"), or similarly give the process a pragmatic or theoretic focus, a focus on the past or the present, and so on.
5. Focusing the field of meaning: So far we have been spreading out a rich but unorganized field of meanings. It is now time to take stock of what we have done, and to focus it.
To do so, the session-director says something like: "Let us now consider all the understandings that have been expressed in this circle, and look at the text again."
The leader now reads the text again, and asks the group: "What did that text tell us in the past forty-five minutes? What understanding did it raise in this circle?"
The session is now open again for the participants to speak, following the above five intentions. They try to articulate a central theme (or themes) for the process so far. Under the direction of the session-director, their suggestions gradually converge into a unified center (or sometimes more than one). The director can then repeat or summarize the central understanding(s) around which the process has evolved. These can be written down on a page.
6. Ending: It is best not to terminate the session abruptly. We let our attentiveness dissipate slowly. After a few minutes, as we disperse, the individual participants may take a solitary walk, or sit down quietly, while keeping the understandings that touched them present in their consciousness.
Guided Philosophical Imagery
Guided Imagery is a common technique that is used in a variety of workshops. Here it is adopted to Contemplative Philosophy. The basic idea is that our spontaneous imagination can reveal deep understandings that are not easily accessible to our conscious thought.
In preparation for the session, the session-director chooses a short philosophical text in which the basic idea can be metaphorically visualized. An example is Plato's cave allegory, in which we can visualize the cave-dwellers and their way out to the sun; or Henri Bergson's text on the free act, from Creative Evolution (see Part 3), in which the self is likened to a subterranean stream that is covered with solidified ideas.
We sit comfortably in a loose circle. We read the text and make sure that we understand its surface meaning. A few minutes of meditation are recommended to enter a state of silence and attentiveness.
The session-director then instructs the participants to close their eyes and visualize a figurative scene suggested by the text. While doing so, we keep in mind the philosophical ideas from the text that the scene metaphorically expresses.
For example, in the case of Plato's cave allegory, the leader might say: "Imagine that you are inside the cave. That cave is you: the walls are your own boundaries, the boundaries of your thoughts, of your thinking habits, of your emotional patterns, of your courage… There are ropes that hold you down to the chair… Now, take a look around you, see the walls, the shadows, the chair… Feel the strength of the ropes, and how they stop you from moving… Listen if you can hear something behind you… How does it feel to sit like that on the chair?… Now, something new is happening: somebody behind you is untying you. You are now free to move. See if you can turn around and look at what's behind you…"
Similarly, in the case of Bergson's text, the leader might say: "You are now standing by a stream of water. The stream is you, the flow of water is your own self… It is covered by some kind of crust—visualize it; see what it looks like… Look around and see your surroundings, where you are, where the stream seems to be coming from and where it is going… Now lean down to the stream and touch the stuff that covers the water; don't move it yet, don't yet expose the water, just touch it and see what it feels like… Hold some of the stuff in your hand; you already know it, it is something in you. Feel it… Alright, now push aside this dead stuff, make a hole in this upper crust, expose a bit of the surface of the water… Look at the water flowing… touch it and see what it feels like… And now, when you are ready, go into this opening, dive into the water as deep as you can, and explore what's there. Take your time."
Such instructions may be more detailed and directive or more general and open, depending on the group and the situation. In any case, it is important to leave gaps of silence in order to allow the participants explore their imagined world on their own. Once the participants are on track, the director can leave them alone without instructions for some five or even ten minutes.
To end the imagined journey, the director asks the participants to get ready to return to the starting point, or to some other meaningful location that could serve as an appropriate closure for the journey. For example, in the case of Bergson's text the director might request the participants to return, when ready, to the surface of the water, to get out of the stream, and, if they wish, to cover again the opening in the upper crust.
We then open our eyes at our own pace. After a few moments of silence, we share with each other our experiences. This may be done in a Discernment Circle (see above), in order to enhance the openness to listen to each other.
After this round of sharing experiences, a second, philosophical round follows: What have we learned about the philosophical text and its main ideas? What did the text teach me? What new understandings have we gained? This round can be done either in an ordinary conversation or in a relaxed Discernment Circle.
Philosophical Drawings
In Philosophical Drawings we assume that drawing a philosophical idea may reveal deep understandings that are not easily accessible to our verbal thought. The process can be seen as composed of five stages:
1. Determining the drawing theme: The exercise starts with a slow reading of a short text, or several texts on a specific philosophical issue. We then briefly discuss the texts to make sure that we all understand their surface meaning. Next, the session-director formulates a philosophical topic related to the texts, to be drawn by the participants. The topic can be formulated in an impersonal and general way (e.g., The real self; Words and silence; Love as Eros versus love as Agape; etc.). But it is usually more effective to formulate the topic in a personal way, focusing on what it means to the individual, or how it is manifested within the individual's life. Examples are: My real self; What silence says to me; Where is Erotic love in my life, What the text says to me, etc.
2. Drawing: We now disperse throughout the room, and each one draws on a sheet of paper his or her visual conception of the topic. Color crayons or pencils could be very helpful. Two intentions are important here: First, we should try to draw directly from our pre-verbal understanding, rather than translate an already-verbalized idea into the drawing. Second, we should avoid using written letters or symbols that have standard meanings. For example, we should not draw a heart as a symbol for love, because this simplistic symbolism impoverishes the possible spectrum of meanings that a drawing can have. For a similar reason, it is possible to add a third intention that prohibits drawing any recognizable object, such as a face, a star, or a flower. This means that the only allowable drawings are of a non-figurative, abstract style.
3. Giving titles to the drawing: After we have finished, we place our drawings on tables or on the floor, as in an art exhibition. The drawings are there for everybody to see, but they do not yet have titles. It is the job of each group-member to give a title to each drawing. By letting others give titles to my drawing I am in fact enabling them to point out to me hidden meanings which I might not have noticed.
To do so, we place next to each drawing an empty sheet of paper, or Title Sheet. We now walk about in the room and examine each other's work. In our free time and at our own pace, each one writes for each drawing a title that best expresses his or her understating of the drawing . The title should be of about 2-3 words, but in any case no more than five words (excluding prepositions and connectives).
4. What the titles tell me: Now that each drawing has received several titles from the group, we sit down in a circle. Each one in his or her turn presents to the others the drawing and explains the philosophical understanding that it was meant to express. He or she then reads out loud the titles of the drawing, and explains what new light these titles have added to the meaning of the drawing.
5. Philosophical summary: To end the exercise of Philosophical Drawings, we bring together the various understandings that came up during the process, either in an informal conversation or by means of a Discernment Circle. The purpose here is not to determine a bottom line, but to map out a field of understandings about the philosophical issue in question.
It should be mentioned that a similar exercise can be done with a deck of painted cards, instead of by drawing. Forty or fifty cards, each one with an interesting drawing, may express a variety of meanings. The cards are spread on the floor, and each participant chooses and pick up one of them to express his or her understanding of the philosophical topic. The participants then explain to the group their choices, and a conversation can be developed on this basis.
Slow Reading
Slow Reading is an individualist technique, intended to give each participant a personal space of inner silence in which the text can give rise to various understandings. In fact, it resembles a prayer more than a conversation.
For this reason, the text should be chosen with care. It should be concise and rich with meanings, and not too verbose, repetitive or technical. Also, it should be at least one page long, possibly more, and organized in short paragraphs. (Or, if the paragraphs are long, they can be sub-divided in pencil to shorter sections).
We disperse throughout the room, sitting or standing in no particular order. Each one holds a copy of the text. The session-director reads out loud the first word or phrase of the first paragraph, and then remains silent for a few minutes. During those minutes, we dwell on that paragraph. What exactly we do is the individual's own choice: We can read each word very slowly, or meditate on particular words, or visualize the central ideas, or more generally explore different forms of slow reading. Whatever we do, the extreme slowness of the reading helps to take us beyond the normal automatic way of reading.
Several minutes later the director reads out the beginning of the second paragraph, then the third, and so on until the end of the chosen text.
The participants can then separate for a quiet walk. Alternatively, a conversation can be developed.
Philosophical Partners
This is not a single technique, but a general framework for philosophical interactions in which two (or three) companions help each other to encounter a philosophical text or idea in a personal way, one that is different from the normal, everyday attitude. The basic idea is that certain rules are artificially imposed on the philosophical conversation, and these force us to assume an unfamiliar inner stance, and thus to go beyond our superficial attitudes and ideas.
This activity is done in pairs. In the case of group activity, the participants break up to groups of two, and each pair finds a quiet place where they can converse in private. (Groups of three are also possible, where the third person serves as a witness to the conversation). At the end of the session, the groups meet again and share their experiences and insights.
It is often helpful to focus the conversation not just on a given philosophical issue, but also on a brief philosophical text. The rules that are imposed on the conversation can direct it in a more personal or more general direction, as desired. Here are a few suggestions for possible rules:
a. Alternative voices: Normally we have opinions that serve as our "official party-line"—about politics, religion, morality, and so on. We adopt and declare them as our opinions. These long-held official opinions tend to be solidified in our minds and lose their mutability and vitality. At other times we find ourselves blurting opinions on some new issue which we have never thought about, and yet we blurt them automatically, without pausing to think. These we might call our automatic opinions. The relationship between official and automatic opinions is not obvious, but the common element in them is that they are not born out of a presently deep deliberation or self-examination.(At most they are the product of a deliberation that took place some time in the past.)
In this exercise we try to give voice to deeper, living, un-solidified parts in us. To do so, we impose the following rule on the conversation: Whenever participants wish to speak, they first have to briefly formulate their official or automatic opinion. Then they have to articulate in greater detail an alternative voice, which may express some nagging thought, or a fear, a hope, a doubt etc., but which rarely gets a chance of being expressed. Thus, a participant might say, in the context of Sartre's view on emotions: "My official opinion is that I am free to control my anger. An alternative voice in me says that I am often helpless to calm myself, that I am a victim of psychological factors that compel me to explode. I perceived this voice yesterday at the dinner table, when nobody listened to me. I felt swept away by waves of frustration. According to this voice, Sartre is wrong, because my emotions are not my own free creation. They are, rather, powers which I may or may not manage to overcome."
b. Postponed conversation: Here, in order to avoid official and automatic opinions, we do not reply or speak immediately when it is our turn to speak, as in everyday conversations. Rather, we have to wait in silence some 10 seconds (or another agreed-upon interval) before speaking. This makes us aware of our tendency for automatic speech, and helps us to search within ourselves for other voices.
c. What does the philosopher say to me? Here our main issue is: "What does the text (or a given philosopher) say to me, personally, about my life?" The two conversant put aside their personal opinions, and are allowed to use only the philosophical 'voice' of the chosen text (or philosopher). In other words, they speak about a personal issue from the perspective of the text's (or philosopher's) ideas: concepts, assumptions, beliefs.
It is often useful to change roles every once in a while: One participant represents a given philosophical voice, while the other is himself or herself, and the two discuss a personal issue from the latter's life.
Part 3: Texts for Philosophical Contemplation
TOPIC 1: CONTEMPLATION AND PHILOSOPHY
J. Krishnamurti
When the mind is still, tranquil, not seeking any answer or solution even, neither resisting nor avoiding, it is only then that there can be a regeneration, because then the mind is capable of perceiving what is true, and it is the truth that liberates, not our effort to be free.
Sextus Empiritus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book 1
Jason Saunders, Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle, New York: Free Press,1966, p.153-158
From Chapter 4
Skepticism is an ability, or mental attitude, which opposes appearances to judgments in any way whatsoever, with the result that, owing to the equipollence of the objects and reasons thus opposed, we are brought firstly to a state of mental suspense, and next to state of "unperturbedness" or quietude.
(…) "Equipollence" we use of equality in respect to probability and improbability, to indicate that no one of the conflicting judgments takes precedence of any other as being more probable. "Suspense" is a state of mental rest owing to which we neither deny nor affirm anything. "Quietude" is untroubled and tranquil condition of the soul.
From Chapter 12
We assert still that the Skeptic's end is quietude in respect of matters of opinion, and moderate feeling in respect to things unavoidable. For the Skeptic, having set out to philosophize with the object of passing judgment on the sense impressions, and ascertaining which of them are true and which false, so as to attain quietude thereby, found himself involved in contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them suspended judgment; and as he was thus in suspense there followed, as it happened, the state of quietude in respect of matter of opinion. For the man who opines that anything is by nature good or bad is for ever being disquieted: when he is without the things which he deems good he is tormented by things naturally bad and he pursues after the things which are, as he thinks, good; which when he has obtained he keeps falling into still more perturbations because of his irrational and immoderate elation, and in his dread of change of fortune he uses every endeavor to avoid losing the things which he deems good. On the other hand, the man who determines nothing as to what is naturally good or bad neither shuns nor pursues anything eagerly; and, in consequence, he is unperturbed.
Karl Jaspers,Way to Wisdom
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960, p. 120-125
The desire to lead a philosophical life springs from the darkness in which the individual finds himself, from his sense of forlornness when he stares without love into the void, from his self-forgetfulness when he feels that he is being consumed by the busy-ness of the world, when he suddenly wakes up in terror and asks himself: What am I, what am I failing to do, what should I do?
The self-forgetfulness has been aggravated by the machine age. With its time clocks, its jobs, whether absorbing or purely mechanical, which less and less fulfill man as man, it may even lead man to feel that he is part of the machine, interchangeably shunted in here and there, and when left free, to feel that he is nothing and can do nothing with himself. And just as he begins to recover himself, the colossus of this world draws him back again into the all-consuming machinery of empty labour and empty leisure.
But man as such inclines to self-forgetfulness. He must snatch himself out of it if he is not to lose himself to the world, to habits, to thoughtless banalities, to the beaten track.
Philosophy is the decision to awaken our primal source, to find our way back to ourselves, and to help ourselves by inner action.
True, our first duty in life is to perform our practical tasks, to meet the demands of the day. But if we desire to lead a philosophical life we shall not content ourselves with practical tasks; we shall look upon the mere work in whose aims we immerse ourselves as in itself a road to self-forgetfulness, omission, and guilt. And to lead a philosophical life means also to take seriously our experience of men, of happiness and hurt, of success and failure, of the obscure and the confused. It means not to forget but to possess ourselves inwardly of our experience, not to let ourselves distracted but to think of problems through, not to take things for granted but to elucidate them.
There are two paths of philosophical life: the path of solitary meditation in all its ramification and the path of communication with men, of mutual understanding through acting, speaking and keeping silence together.
We men cannot do without daily moment of profound reflection. In them we recapture our self-awareness, lest the presence of the primal source be lost entirely amid the inevitable distractions of daily life.
What the religions accomplish in prayer and worship has its philosophical analogy in explicit immersion, in inner communion with being itself. This can take place only in times and moments (regardless whether at the beginning or end of the day or in between) when we are not occupied in the world with worldly aims and yet are not left empty but are in contact with what is most essential.
Unlike religious contemplation, philosophical contemplation has no holy object, no sacred place, no fixed form. The order which we give to it does not become a rule, it remains potentially in free motion. This contemplation, unlike religious worship, demands solitude.
What is the possible content of such contemplation?
First, self-reflection. I call to mind what I have done, thought, done during the day. I ask myself wherein I have erred, wherein I have been dishonest with myself, wherein I have evaded my responsibilities, wherein I have been insincere; I also try to discern what good qualities I have displayed and seek ways in which to enhance them. I reflect on the degree of conscious control over my actions that I have exerted in the course of the day. I judge myself—with regard to my particular conduct, not with regard to the whole man that I am, for that is inaccessible to me—I find principles in accordance with which I resolve to judge myself, perhaps I fix in my mind words that I plan to address to myself in anger, in despair, in boredom, and in other states in which the self is lost, magic words as it were, reminders (such as: observe moderation, think of the other, be patient, God is). I learn from the tradition that runs from the Pythagoreans through the Stoics and Christians to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, with its injunction to self-reflection; I realize that such reflection can never be conclusive and that it is infinitely susceptible to error.
Second, transcending reflection. Guided by philosophical methods, I gain awareness of authentic being, of the godhead. I read the symbols of being with the help of literature and art. I gain understanding of them by philosophical scrutiny. I seek to ascertain that which is independent of time, seek to touch upon the source of my freedom and through it upon being itself; I seek as it were to partake in creation.
Third, I reflect on what should be done in the present. Remembrance of my own life with men is the background against which I clarify my present task down to the details of this particular day, when in the inevitable intensity of practical thinking I lose my awareness of the Comprehensive meaning.
What I gain for myself alone in reflection would—if it were all—be as nothing gained.
What is not realized in communication is not yet, what is not ultimately grounded in it is without ultimate foundation. The Truth begins with two.
Consequently philosophy demands: seek constant communication, risk it without reserve, renounce the defiant self-assertion which forces itself upon you in ever new disguises, live in your hope that in your very renunciation you will in some incalculable way be given back to yourself.
Hence I must constantly draw myself into doubt, I must not grow secure, I must not fasten on to any ostensible light within myself, in the belief that it will illumine me reliably and judge me truly. Such an attitude toward the self is the most seductive form of inauthentic self-assertion.
If I meditate in three forms—self-reflection, transcending meditation, contemplation of my task—and open myself to unlimited communication, an imponderable presence which can never be forced may come to me: the clarity of my love, the hidden and always uncertain imperative of the godhead, the revelation of being—perhaps bringing with it peace of mind amid life's constant turmoil, a trust in the foundation of things despite the most terrible catastrophes, unswerving resolve amid the vacillations of passion, a firm loyalty amid the momentary lures of the world.
If in my meditation I achieve awareness of the Comprehensive out of which I live and can live better, meditation will provide the dominant tone that carries me through the day in its countless activities, even while I am being swept along by the technical machine. For in these moments when I return home as it were to myself I acquire an underlying harmony which persists behind the moods and movements of the day, which sustains me and in all my derailment, confusion, emotional upheaval does not let me sink into the abyss. For these moments give to the present both memory and future, they give my life cohesion and continuity.
To philosophize is then at once to learn how to live and to know how to die. Because of he uncertainty of temporal existence life is always an experiment.
Abraham Heschel, Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994, p. 13
A philosophy that begins with radical doubt ends in radical despair. It was the principle of dubito ut intelligam that prepared the soil for modern gospels of despair. "Philosophy begins in wonder" (Plato, Theatetus 155D), in a state of mind which we should like to call thaumatism (from thaumazein—to doubt) as distinguished from skepticism.
Even before we conceptualize what we perceive, we are amazed beyond words, beyond doubts. We may doubt anything, except that we are struck with amazement. When in doubt, we raise questions; when in wonder, we do not even know how to ask a question. Doubts may be resolved, radical amazement can never be erased. There is no answer in the world to man's radical wonder. Under the running sea of our theories and scientific explanations lies the aboriginal abyss of radical amazement.
Radical amazement has a wider scope than any other act of man. While any act of perception or cognition has as its object a selected segment of reality, radical amazement refers to all of reality, not only to what we see, but also to the very act of seeing as well as to our own selves that see and are amazed at their ability to see.
J. Krishnamurti, Think of These Things
New York: HarperPerennial, 1964, p. 27-28
Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don't you? You hear the far-off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds—which means, really, that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change which comes without your volition, without your asking; and in that change there is a great beauty and depth and insight.
(…)
If you can listen in this way with ease, with a certain felicity, you will find an astonishing transformation taking place in your heart, in your mind—a transformation which you have not thought of, or in any way produced.
Thought is a very strange thing, is it not? Do you know what thought is? Thought or thinking for most people is something put together by the mind, and they battle over their thoughts. But if you can really listen to everything—to the lapping of the water on the bank of a river, to the song of the birds, to the crying of a child, to your mother scolding you, to a friend bullying you, to your wife or husband nagging you—then you will find that you go beyond the words, beyond the mere verbal expressions which so tear one's being.
TOPIC 2: THE SELF AND ITS DEPTHS
Robert Browning (1812–1889), ‘Paracelsus’
Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.
TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception—which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNOW,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.
Plotinus, Enneads (I 1.vii)
The Neoplatonists, John Gregory, London: Kyle Cathie, 1991, p. 119
But how is it we who perceive? (…) The soul's power of perception must not be of sensible objects, but rather, it must be able to apprehend impressions produced by sensation in the living being; for these are already intelligible entities. External sensation, then, is an image of this inner apprehension of the soul, which has the greater reality as being an impassive contemplation of pure forms. It is these forms, the source of soul's sovereignty over the living being, that make possible discursive reasoning, judgements and act of intellect; and it is precisely here that 'we' are located. What is below this level of functioning belongs to us, but 'we' are the higher self that controls the whole complex being. There is no reason not to use the term 'living being' of the whole, while recognising that the true man rises above the lower, compounded part, which Plato calls the 'leonine' and the 'many-headed beast'. For man coincides with the reasoning soul, so that when we reason it is 'we' who reason, since reasoning is an activity of the soul.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part 4, section 6
There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or pleasure. To attempt a further proof of this were to weaken its evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact of which we are so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing of which we can be certain if we doubt of this.
Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience which is pleaded for them; nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is here explained. For, from what impression could this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question which must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass for clear and intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea.
But further, what must become of all our particular perceptions upon this hypothesis? All these are different, and distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be separately considered, and may exist separately, and have no need of any thing to support their existence. After what manner therefore do they belong to self, and how are they connected with it? For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is further requisite to make me a perfect nonentity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me.
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
(An essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness), translation by F.L. Pogson, London: Allen & Unwin, 1959, p. 169-170
When our most trustworthy friends agree in advising us to take some important step, the sentiments which they utter with so much insistence lodge on the surface of our ego and there get solidified in the same way as the ideas of which we spoke just now. Little by little they will form a thick crust which will cover up our own sentiments; we shall believe that we are acting freely, and it is only by looking back to the past, later on, that we shall see how much we were mistaken. But then, at the very minute when the act is going to be performed, something may revolt against it. It is the deep-seated self rushing up to the surface. It is the outer crust bursting, suddenly giving way to an irresistible thrust. Hence in the depths of the self, below this most reasonable pondering over most reasonable pieces of advice, something else was going on—a gradual heating and a sudden boiling over of feelings and ideas, not unperceived, but rather unnoticed. If we turn back to them and carefully scrutinize our memory, we shall see that we had ourselves shaped these ideas, ourselves lived these feelings, but that, through some strange reluctance to exercise our will, we had thrust them back into the darkest depths of our soul whenever they came up to the surface. And this is why we seek in vain to explain our sudden change of mind by the visible circumstances which preceded it. We wish to know the reason why we have made up our mind, and we find that we have decided without any reason, and perhaps against every reason. But, in certain cases, that is the best of reasons. For the action which has been performed does not then express some superficial idea, almost external to ourselves, distinct and easy to account for: it agrees with the whole of our most intimate feelings, thoughts and aspirations, with that particular conception of life which is the equivalent of all our past experience, in a word, with our personal idea of happiness and of honor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Written after Emerson's first trip to England)
I recognize the distinction of the outer and the inner Self; the double consciousness that, within this erring, passionate, mortal self, sits a supreme, calm, immortal mind, whose powers I do not know, but it is stronger than I; it is wiser than I; it never approved me in any wrong; I seek counsel of it in my doubts; I repair to it in my dangers; I pray to it in my undertakings.
We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight . . . . It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. . . . Nothing is dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise.
Martin Buber, I and Thou
New York: Charles Scibner's Sons,1979, p.54-55
Basic words are spoken with one's being. When one says You, the I of the pair I-You is said, too. When one says It, the I of the word pair I-It is said, too. The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one's whole being. The basic word I-It can never be spoken with one's whole being.
There is no I as such but only the I of the basic word I-You and the I of the basic word I-It.
(…)
The life of a human being does not exist merely in the sphere of goal-directed verbs. It does not consist merely of activities that have something for their object.
I perceive something. I feel something. I imagine something. I want something. I sense something. I think something. The life of a human being does not consist merely of all this and its like. All this and its like is the basis of the realm of It. But the realm of You has another basis.
Whoever says You does not have something for his object. For wherever there is something there is also another something; every It borders on other Its; It is only by virtue of bordering on others. But where You is said there is no something. You has no borders.
Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.
TOPIC 3: WORDS, SILENCE, AND BEYOND
Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching poem 1
Wenry Wei, The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu, Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing, 1985, p. 129
The Tao that can be stated is not the Eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the Eternal Name.
The Unnameable is originator of Heaven and Earth.
The Nameable is mother of the ten thousand things.
Therefore,
Always be desireless, so as to discern Tao's wonderful essence;
Always have some desire, so as to discern its manifestations.
These two come out from the same source,
But are different in name.
Their identical nature is a mystery.
Mystery of mysteries—
That is the gate of all wonderful essence.
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
(An essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness), translation by F.L. Pogson, London: Allen & Unwin, 1959, p. 129-132
When, for example, I take my first walk in a town in which I am going to live, my environment produces on me two impressions at the same time, one of which is destined to last while the other will constantly change. Every day I perceive the same houses, and as I know that they are the same objects, I always call them by the same name and I also fancy that they always look the same to me. But if I recur, at the end of a sufficiently long period, to the impression which I experienced during the first few years, I am surprised at the remarkable, inexplicable, and indeed inexpressible change which has taken place. It seems that these object, continually perceived by me and constantly impressing themselves on my mind, have ended by borrowing from me something of my own conscious existence; like myself they have lived, and like myself they have grown old. This is not a mere illusion; for if today's impression were absolutely identical with that of yesterday, what difference would there be between perceiving and recognizing, between learning and remembering? Yet this difference escapes the attention of most of us; we shall hardly perceive it, unless we are warned of it and then carefully look into ourselves. The reason is that our outer and, so to speak, social life is more practically important to us than our inner and individual existence. We instinctively tend to solidify our impressions in order to express them in language. Hence we confuse the feeling itself, which is in a perpetual state of becoming, with its permanent eternal object, and especially with the word which expresses its object. In the same way as the fleeting duration of our ego is fixed by its projection in homogenous space, our constantly changing impressions, wrapping themselves round the external object which is their cause, take on its definite outlines and its immobility.
Our simple sensations, taken in their natural state, are still more fleeting. Such and such a flavour, such and such a scent, pleased me when I was a child though I dislike them today. Yet I still give the same name to the sensation experienced, and I speak as if only my taste has changed, whilst the scent and the flavour have remained the same. Thus I again solidify the sensation; and when its changeableness becomes so obvious that I cannot help recognizing it, I abstract this changeableness to give it a name of its own and solidify it in the shape of a taste. But in reality there are neither identical sensations nor multiple tastes: for sensations and tastes seem to me to be objects as soon as I isolate and name them, and in the human soul there are only processes. What I ought to say is that every sensation is altered by repetition, and that if it does not seem to me to change from day to day, it is because I perceive it through the object which is its cause, through the word which translates it. This influence of language on sensation is deeper than is usually thought. Not only does language make us believe in the unchangeableness of our sensation, but it will sometimes deceive us as to the nature of the sensation felt. Thus, when I partake of a dish that is supposed to be exquisite, the name which it bears, suggestive of the approval given to it, comes between my sensation and my consciousness; I may believe that the flavour pleases me when a slight effort of attention would prove the contrary.
In short, the word with well-defined outlines, the rough and ready word, which stores up the stable, common, and consequently impersonal element in the impressions of mankind, overwhelms or at least covers over the delicate and fugitive impressions of our individual consciousness. To maintain the struggle on equal terms, the latter ought to express themselves in precise words; but these words, as soon as they were formed, would turn against the sensation which gave birth to them, and, invented to show that the sensation is unstable, they would impose on it their own stability.
Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith
New York: Harper & Row, 1957, p. 41-43
Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate. This statement demands explanation in several respects. In spite of the manifold research about the meaning and function of symbols which is going on in contemporary philosophy, every writer who uses the term "symbol" must explain his understanding of it.
Symbols have one characteristic in common with signs; they point beyond themselves to something else. The red sign at the street corner points to the order to stop the movement of cars at certain intervals. A red light and the stopping of cars have essentially no relation to each other, but conventionally they are united as long as the convention lasts. The same is true of letters and numbers and partly even words. They point beyond themselves to sounds and meanings. They are given this special function by convention within a nation or by international conventions, as the mathematical signs. Sometimes such signs are called symbols; but this is unfortunate because it makes the distinction between signs and symbols more difficult. Decisive is the fact that signs do not participate in the reality of that to which they point, while symbols do. Therefore, signs can be replaced for reasons of expediency or convention, while symbols cannot.
This leads to the second characteristic of the symbols: It participates in that to which it points: the flag participates in the power and dignity of the nation for which it stands. Therefore, it cannot be replaced except after a historic catastrophe that changes the reality of the nation which it symbolizes. An attack on the flag is felt as an attack on the majesty of the group in which it is acknowledged. Such an attack is considered blasphemy.
The third characteristic of a symbol is that it opens up levels of reality which otherwise are closed for us. All arts create symbols for a level of reality which cannot be reached in any other way. A picture and a poem reveal elements of reality which cannot be appreciated scientifically. In the creative work of art we encounter reality in a dimension which is closed to us without such works. The symbol's fourth characteristic not only opens up dimensions and elements of reality which otherwise would remain unapproachable, but also unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality. A great play gives us not only a new vision of the human scene, but it opens up hidden depths of our own being. Thus we are able to receive what the play reveals to us in reality. There are within us dimensions of which we cannot become aware except through symbols, as melodies and rhythms in music.
Max Picard, The World of Silence
Translated by Stanley Godman, Washington: Gateway, 1988, p. 24-27
Speech came out of silence, out of the fullness of silence. The fullness of silence would have exploded if it had not been able to flow out into speech.
The speech that comes out of silence is as it were justified by the silence that precedes it. It is the spirit that legitimates speech, but the silence that precedes speech is the pregnant mother who is delivered of speech by the creative activity of the spirit. The sign of this creative activity of the spirit is the silence that precedes speech.
Whenever a man begins to speak, the word comes from silence at each new beginning.
It comes so self-evidently and so unobtrusively as if it were merely the reverse of silence, merely silence turned around. Speech is in fact the reverse of silence, just as silence is the reverse of speech.
There is something silent in every word, as an abiding token of the origin of speech. And in every silence there is something of the spoken word, as an abiding token of the power of silence to create speech.
Speech is therefore essentially related to silence.
Not until one man speaks to another, does he learn that speech no longer belongs to silence but to man. He learns it through the Thou of the other person, for through the Thou the word first belongs to man and no longer to silence. When two people are conversing with one another, however, a third is always present: Silence is listening. That is what gives breadth to a conversation: when the words are not moving merely within the narrow space occupied by the two speakers, but come from afar, from the place where silence is listening. That gives the words a new fullness. But not only that: the words are spoken as it were from the silence, from that third person, and the listener receives more than the speaker alone is able to give. Silence is the third speaker in such a conversation. At the end of the Platonic dialogues it is always as though silence itself were speaking. The persons who were speaking seem to have become listeners to silence.
(…) Silence is a world in itself, and from this world of silence speech learns to form itself into a world: the world of silence and the world of speech confront each other. Speech is therefore opposed to silence, but not as an enemy: it is only the other side, the reverse of silence. One can hear silence sounding through speech. Real speech is in fact nothing but the resonance of silence.
Abraham Heschel, Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994, p. 15-16
Always we are chasing words, and always words recede. But the greatest experiences are those for which we have no expression. To live only on that which we can say is to wallow in the dust, instead of digging up the soil. How shall we ignore the mystery, in which we are involved, to which we are attached by our very existence? How shall we remain deaf to the throb of the cosmic that is subtly echoed in our own souls? The most intimate is the most mysterious. Wonder alone is the compass that may direct us to the pole of meaning. As I enter the next second of my life, while writing these lines, I am aware that to be swept by the enigma and to pause—rather than to flee and to forget—is to live within the core.
To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words. The essence, the tangent to the curve of the human experience, lies beyond the limits of language. The world of things we perceive is but a veil. Its flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. Its silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away.
Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.
TOPIC 4: THE ULTIMATE AND ULTIMATE CONCERN
Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, poem 16
Wenry Wei, The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu, Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing, 1985, p. 149
Empty the mind to the utmost extent,
Maintain quiescence with the whole being.
The ten thousand things are growing with one impulse,
Yet I can discern their cyclic return.
Luxuriant indeed are the growing things;
Yet each again will return to the root.
Returning to the root means quiescence;
Quiescence means renewal of life;
Renewal of life means in tune with the Immutable.
Knowing the Immutable brings enlightenment.
Not knowing the Immutable brings disaster.
Knowing the Immutable, one will be broad-minded;
Being broad-minded, one will be impartial;
Being impartial, one will be kingly;
Being kingly, one will attain the Divine;
Attaining the Divine, one will merge with the Tao,
And become immortal and imperishable,
Even after the disappearance of the body.
Plato, Timaeus
B. Jewett, The Dialogues of Plato, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931, p. 513
When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must be altogether immortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy.
Plotinus, Enneads (I 6.vii)
John Gregory, The Neoplatonists, London: Kyle Cathie, 1991, p. 158-9
We must therefore ascend again to the Good, for which every soul yearns. Whoever has seen it knows what I mean in calling it beautiful. Even the desire for this is to be desired as a good; and the attainment of it is for those who make the ascent and turn to it, and strip off the coverings we have put on in our descent, just as those who ascend to the inner sanctuary of the temples must first be purified and put off their former garments and enter naked; until, after passing on the ascent all that is alien to God, each one sees in his own solitude the solitary Good, unalloyed, simple and pure, from which all things depend, and towards which all things look and exist and live and think, as the cause of Life and Mind and Being.
Should anyone see this, what pangs of love would he feel, what yearnings to be blest with it, what a shock of delight? He who has not seen may yearn for it as good; but he who has seen will marvel at its beauty, and be filled with wonder and delight and a sense of awe that brings no hurt; his love will be true love and his passion keen, and he will despise all other loves and disdain all that he once thought beautiful. Such is also the feeling of those who, after encountering gods or spirits in visible form, no longer take the same pleasure in the beauty of other bodies. What then shall we think of one who should contemplate absolute Beauty in its essential purity, not housed in flesh or body, not in earth nor in heaven, that it may keep its purity? For these are all extraneous, alloys, not primal but descended from the First. If one should see that Good, which provides for all but in self-contentment takes nothing for itself, what further beauty would one need, but to continue contemplation and find delight to be made like to it?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Transcendentalist
Brooks Atkinson, The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, New York: Random House, 1950, p. 88
The idealist, in speaking of events, sees them as spirits. He does not deny the sensuous fact: by no means; but he will not see that alone. He does not deny the presence of this table, this chair, and the walls of this room, but he looks at these things as the reverse side of the tapestry, as the other end, each being a sequel or completion of a spiritual fact which nearly concerns him.
Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith
New York: Harper & Row, 1957, p. 1-4
Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man's ultimate concern. Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very existence, such as food and shelter. But man, in contrast to other living beings, has spiritual concerns—cognitive, aesthetic, social, political. Some of the are urgent, often extremely urgent, and each of them as well as the vital concerns can claim ultimacy for a human life or the life of a social group. If it claims ultimacy, it demands the total surrender of him who accepts this claim, and it promises total fulfillment even if all other claims have to be subjected to it or rejected in its name.
(…)
Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man's total being. They all are united in the act of faith. But faith is not the sum total of their impacts. It transcends every special impact as well as the totality of them and it has itself a decisive impact on each of them.
TOPIC 5: WISDOM, UNDERSTANDING, AND KNOWLEDGE
Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Nathan Oaklander, Existentialist Philosophy, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1992, p. 44-45
For an objective reflection the truth becomes an object, something objective, and thought points away from the subject. For subjective reflection the truth becomes a matter of appropriation, of inwardness, of subjectivity, and thought must penetrate deeper and still deeper into the subject and his subjectivity. Just as in objective reflection, when objectivity had come into being, subjectivity disappeared, so here the subjectivity of the subject becomes the final stage, and objectivity disappears. It is not for an instant forgotten that the subject is an existing individual, and that existence is a process of thought, and being is a chimera of abstraction; this is not because the truth is not such an identity but because the believer is an existing individual for whom the truth cannot be such as identity as long as he exists as a temporal being.
If the existing individual really could transcend himself, the truth would be something complete for him, but where is this point outside himself? The I = I is a mathematical point which does not exist, and in so far as one would take this standpoint, he will not stand in another's way. It is only momentarily that the existential subject experiences the unity of the infinite and the finite, which transcends existence, and that moment is the moment of passion. While scribbling modern philosophy is contemptuous of passion, passion remains the highest point of existence for the individual who exists in time. In passion the existential subject is made infinite in imagination's eternity, and at the same time he is himself.
All essential knowledge concerns existence, or only that knowledge which relates to existence is essential, is essential knowledge. All knowledge, which is not existential, which does not involve inward reflection, is really accidental knowledge, its degree and compass are essentially a matter of no importance. This essential knowledge which relates itself existentially to the existing individual is not to be equated with the above mentioned abstract identity between thought and being. But it means that knowledge must relate itself to the knower, who is essentially an existing individual, and therefore all existing knowledge essentially relates itself to existence, to that which exists. But all ethical and all ethical-religious knowledge has this essential relationship to the existence of the knower.
In order to elucidate the difference between the objective way of reflection and the subjective way, I shall now show how subjective reflection makes its way back into inwardness. The highest point of inwardness in an existing person is passion, for passion corresponds to truth as a paradox, and the fact that the truth becomes a paradox is grounded in its relation to an existing individual. The one corresponds to the other. By forgetting that we are existing subjects, we lose passion and truth ceases to be a paradox, but the knowing subject begins to lose his humanity and becomes fantastic and the truth likewise becomes a fantastic object for this kind of knowledge.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Walter Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche, New York: Penguin, 1984, p. 214-217, 236-237
On the Famous Wise Men
You have served the people and the superstition of the people, all you famous wise men—and not truth. And that is precisely why you were accorded respect. And that is also why your lack of faith was tolerated; it was a joke and a circuitous route to the people. Thus the master lets his slaves have their way and is even amused by their pranks.
But the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer who dwells in the woods, is has hateful to the people as a wolf to the dogs. To hound him out of his lair—that is what the people have called "a sense of decency"; and against him the people still set their fiercest dogs.
"Truth is there; after all, the people are there!"—these words have echoed through the ages. You wanted to prove your people right in their reverence: that is what you called "will to truth," you famous wise men.
(…) Oh, to make me believe in your "truthfulness" you would first have to break your revering will.
Truthful I call him who goes into godless deserts, having broken his reverent heart. In the yellow sands, burned by the sun, he squints thirstily at the islands abounding in wells, where living things rest under dark trees. Yet his thirst does not persuade him to become like these, dwelling in comfort; for where there are oases there are also idols.
Hungry, violent, lonely, godless; thus the lion-will wants itself. Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from gods and adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, great and lonely; such is the will of the truthful.
(…)
You are no eagles; hence you have never experienced the happiness that is in the terror of the spirit. And he who is not a bird should not build his nest over the abysses.
Your are lukewarm to me, but all profound knowledge flows cold. Ice cold are the inmost wells of the spirit; refreshing for hot hands and men of action. You stand there honorable and still and with straight backs, you famous wise men; no strong wind and will drives you.
Have you ever seen a sail go over the sea, rounded and taut and trembling with the violence of the wind? Like the sail, trembling with violence of the spirit, my wisdom goes over the sea—my wild wisdom.
But you servants of the people, you famous wise men—how could you go with me?
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
On Scholars
For this is the truth: I have moved from the house of the scholars and I even banged the door behind me. My soul sat hungry at their table for too long. I am not, like them, trained to pursue knowledge as it if were nut-cracking. I love freedom and the air over the fresh earth; rather would I sleep on ox hides than on their decorums and respectabilities.
I am too hot and burned by my own thoughts; often it nearly takes my breath away. Then I must go out into the open and away from all dusty rooms. But they sit cool in the cold shade; in everything they want to be mere spectators, and they beware of sitting where the sun burns on the steps. Like those who stand in the street and gape at the people who pass by, they too wait and gape at thoughts that others have thought.
Ortega y Gasset, The Origin of Philosophy
"Confusion" is an initial phase of all knowledge, without which one cannot progress to clarify. The important thing for the individual who truly desires to think is that he not be overly hurried but be faithful at each step of his mental itinerary to the aspect of reality currently under view, that he strive to avoid disdain for the preliminary distant and confused aspects due to some snob sense of urgency impelling him to arrive immediately at the more refined conclusions.
J. Krishnamurti, Think of These Things
New York: HarperPerennial, 1964, p. 10-13
Now, what does it mean to be free? Is freedom a matter of doing what happens to suit you, going where you like, thinking what you will? This you do anyhow. Merely to have independence, does that mean freedom? Many people in the world are independent, but very few are free. Freedom implies great intelligence, does it not? To be free is to be intelligent, but intelligence does not come into being by just wishing to be free; it comes into being only when you begin to understand your whole environment, the social, religious, parental and traditional influences that are continually closing in on you. But to understand the various influences—the influence of your parents, of your government, of society, of the culture to which you belong, of your beliefs, your gods and superstitions, of the tradition to which you conform unthinkingly—to understand all these and become free from them requires deep insights; but you generally give in to them because inwardly you are frightened. You are afraid of not having a good position in life; you are afraid of what your priest will say; you are afraid of not following tradition, or not doing the right thing. But freedom is really a state of mind in which there is no fear or compulsion, no urge to be secure.
(…)
The moment you come to a conclusion as to what intelligence is, you cease to be intelligent. That is what most older people have done: they have come to conclusions. Therefore they have ceased to be intelligent. So you have found out one thing right off: that an intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning, never concluding.
What is intelligence? Most people are satisfied with a definition of what intelligence is. Either they say: "That is a good explanation," or they prefer their own explanation; and a mind that is satisfied with an explanation is very superficial, therefore it is not intelligent.
You have begun to see that an intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying. Which means what? That there is intelligence only when there is not fear, when you are willing to rebel, to go against the whole social structure in order to find out what God is, or to discover the truth of everything.
Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972, p. 30-31
There is a world, the perceptible world, which is the offspring of hunger [the instinct of self-preservation], and another, the ideal world, which is the offspring of love. And just as there are senses employed in the service of knowing the perceptible world, so there are also senses—dormant for the most part today, since social consciousness has scarcely yet stirred—employed in the service of knowing the ideal world. For why should we deny the objective reality to the creations of love, of the instinct for perpetuation, inasmuch as we grant it to those of hunger and the instinct of self-preservation? For if it is said that the creations of love are no more than figments of our imagination, devoid of objective value, might it not equally be said of the creations of hunger that they are no more than the figments of our senses? Who can assert that there does not exist an invisible and intangible world, perceived only by the inner sense, which lives at the service of the instinct of perpetuation?
TOPIC 6: CREATIVITY AND OPENNESS
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Walter Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche, New York: Penguin, 1984, p. 137-139
From On the Three Metamorphoses
Of three metamorphoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child.
(…)
My brothers, why is there a need in the spirit for the lion? Why is not the beast of burden, which renounces and is reverent, enough?
To create new values—that even the lion cannot do; but the creation of freedom for oneself for new creations—that is within the power of the lion. The creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred "No" even to duty —for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. To assume the right to new values—that is the most terrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much. Verily, to him it is preying, and a matter for a beast of prey. He once loved "thou shalt" as most sacred; now he must find illusion and caprice even in the most sacred, that freedom from his love may become his prey; the lion is needed for such prey.
But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred "Yes." For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred "Yes" is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
Translated by Arthur Mitchell, New York: Random House, 1951, p. 8-10
Our personality, which is being built up each instant with its accumulated experience, changes without ceasing. By changing, it prevents any state, although superficially identical with another, from ever repeating it in its very depth. That is why our duration is irreversible. We could not live over again a single moment, for we should have to begin by effacing the memory of all that had followed. Even could we erase this memory from our intellect, we could not from our will.
Thus our personality shoots, grows and ripens without ceasing. Each of its moments is something new added to what was before. We may go further: it is not only something new, but something unforeseeable. Doubtless, my present state is explained by what was in me and by what was acting on me a moment ago. In analyzing it I should find no other elements. But even a superhuman intelligence would not have been able to foresee the simple indivisible form which gives to these purely abstract elements their concrete organization. For to foresee consists of projecting into the future what has been perceived in the past, or of imagining for a later time a new grouping, in a new order, of elements already perceived. But that which has never been perceived, and which is at the same time simple, is necessarily unforeseeable. Now such is the case with each of our states, regarded as moments in a history that is gradually unfolding: it is simple, and it cannot have been already perceived, since it concentrates in its indivisibility all that has been perceived and what the present is adding to it besides. It is an original moment of a no less original history.
The finished portrait is explained by the features of the model, by the nature of the artist, by the colors spread out on the palette; but, even with the knowledge of what explains it, no one, not even the artist, could have foreseen exactly what the portrait would be, for to predict it would have been to produce it before it was produced—an absurd hypothesis which is its own refutation. Even so with regard to the moments of our life, of which we are the artisans. Each of them is a kind of creation. And just as the talent of the painter is formed or deformed—in any case, is modified—under the very influence of the words he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new form that we are just assuming. It is then right to say that what we do depends on what we are; but it is necessary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we do, and that we are creating ourselves continually.
(…)
We are seeking only the precise meaning that our consciousness gives to this word "exist," and we find that, for a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
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