Personal Observations on Desani’s Piece “A MARGINAL COMMENT ON THE PROBLEM OF MEDIUM IN BICULTURES”

“Oh, how sweet to be alive! How good to be alive and to love life! Oh the ever-present longing to thank life, thank existence itself, to thank them as one being to another being.

“This was exactly what Lara was. You could not communicate with life and existence, but she was their representative, their expression, in her the inarticulate principle of existence became sensitive and capable of speech.”

Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, Copyright 1958, Pantheon Books, Inc., New York, page 325

“….reality takes shape in memory alone….”

“…it yet belonged to an order of supernatural beings whom we have never seen, but whom, in spite of that, we recognize and acclaim with rapture when some explorer of the unseen contrives to coax one forth, to bring it down, from that divine world to which he has access, to shine for a brief moment in the firmament of ours.”

“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves…[The lives you admire] …having been influenced by everything evil or common-place that prevailed round about them…represent a struggle and a victory.”

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of things Past, Vol. I, Vintage Books, September, 1982 pps 201, 381, 923-924

This piece by Desani describes his personal struggle reflected in the creation of his literary works Hatterr and Hali. He uses himself as an example to elucidate all literary creation and its combination into human cultural traditions and propagation across varying, disparate, societies. The opening quotes are different ways of stating points he raises in his essay by literary geniuses who, I think, draw from the same reservoir.

He writes that “Literature is life-histories, a response by individuals to life, to love and hate, and both the makers and the readers need to have, from individual experience and formed habits (cultural involvement), the capacity to move and be moved.” Quoting William Butler Yeats he says ” …I think profound philosophy comes from terror. An abyss opens under our feet… whether we will or not, we must ask the ancient questions: Is there a Reality anywhere? Is there…God? Is there a Soul?

Proust writes “…reality takes shape in memory alone…” Desani says this another way: “Inspiration arises from consciousness…as a reservoir of memories.” He goes on to say “Art, for all the explaining, is a mystery: and original imageries, for all the exploring, the greater mystery.” So, we do not receive high Art but discover it for ourselves in a continuous struggle that becomes a victory.

His Hali, he says, rejects “…an impersonal, amoral, indescribable, unknowable, all and nothing, a loveless, godless abstraction [called the atma].” Hali’s was a “…God of of Love and Beauty, and it was from fulfillment, not defeat, that he willingly surrendered his life.”

Pasternak wants to, and succeeds, in communicating with Being itself, when he realizes that his Lara is The Real made flesh. Desani has Hali write that he would “…seek still, seek a thing of glory…and see what no mortal ever saw before, a vision of such enchanting awful beauty, that a mortal would die! [To behold which as a mortal would mean death.] “He found his vision in a human, his Rooh, of whom he said ‘…the God I prayed to was not holier than thou, none holier, none! …Garland wert thou, the garland of God, to seek which I sought a temple, and thee I found!’

This writer believes “there is an order of supernatural beings whom we have never seen, but whom, in spite of that, we recognize and acclaim with rapture when some explorer of the unseen contrives to coax one forth, to bring it down, from that divine world to which he has access, to shine for a brief moment in the firmament of ours.” Professor Desani does that in this little essay, and indeed, in all his writings, in his life, in our memory of him.

Todd Katz hosts this essay at this link. I’ve also linked to it here at Desni.net

Thoughts on Desani’s Series of Articles “Very High and Very Low”

“The silence of a falling star
lights up a purple sky
and when I wonder where you are
I’m so lonesome I could die.”
Hank Williams

“Hello darkness my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again…”
Paul Simon

Behold the rising sun – silence. Behold the setting moon – silence. Behold the eyes of your lover – silence. The fragrance of a rose – silence. Silence is that by which anything at all manifests, is intelligible. All phenomena originate in silence and there disappears, thus it is astride graves we give birth*. And Desani writes self-consciousness [is] the imposition of nothing on nothing at all. Ex nihilio nihil fit. (Out of nothing comes nothing.) And he quotes from an unpublished manuscript that “To shrink time into a circle and to be outside the circle” and so to know all, all.” God maintains silence so we can speak. True beneficence. Is he sustained by our effort, our brave folly? What is it to him, our trouble, tumult, turmoil, travail? Thunder clouds – lightening – wind – storming renewal, rejuvenation, respite, and new growth. I shake you, jolt-volt you into new life.

In a new post at Desani.net I link to Desani’s Very High and Very Low writings. I wanted to make some separate but personal comments about these without ‘meddling’ with the original. I’ve tried assimilating here, and in many other places too, the essence of his teaching. Its a fools errand, I know. I quote and summarize him and intersperse my own thinking freely. My efforts amount to nothing. Readers are advised to go to, rely on the source writings here at Todd Katz’s Desani.org.

Desani says one must surrender to art. Unpack that. To surrender to art is to be carried away by beauty. The same for Love, Liberty, Wisdom, Truth, any of the concomitants of consciousness. Pursuit – it is so that to intend to achieve the insight of the Buddha, of Jesus too, is a kind of pursuit – of these serves to push them over the horizon, puts them out of reach. It is quite different to have a strong intention. (One realizes along the way that the more you cling to something, a thing, an ideal, the more it slips from your grip. One fails to get water by grasping whereas cupping the hand and receiving that given is the contrasting view.) The same for enlightenment, Nirvana. “There’s nothing to be said that can do more for enlightenment than what a finger pointing at the moon can do for seeing the moon.” Zen proverb.

Desani writes that the Buddha decried the secrecy surrounding Indian spiritual practices of his time. He also writes that Indian teaching of Yoga and associated practices has degenerated into a for profit business. A Nadi text read to his acolytes in Austin Texas on June 21, 1980 says Desani is a “new [kind of] Yogi in the world”. I think he intended to make these spiritual practices freely available, at least more easily accessible, for people. He repeatedly tells of searching far and wide for a particular text or initiation into a technique and now he freely shares that with this audience. (In the “Yellow Text of Theravada Buddhism” he publishes instructions, e.g.) So we benefit from his efforts. He acts on our behalf – the people of the world. Yet, keep in mind he repeatedly says these practices are for the especially initiated, that dangers lie in the path of those who would go it alone, without a qualified teacher. That seems contradictory. Admittedly I’m unaware of how one would have esoteric religious and yoga techniques available generally without bypassing requirements for specialized instruction. Still, one should not expect to pay for instruction from a charlatan that could very well lead to a false, a bad outcome. My best thought is just to do Bhakti yoga, which is ‘love of the Lord’ and leave the arcane practices to the so-called experts. That was Desani’s fall back instruction if you can’t find honest and open teaching. If one follows Desani’s teachings one at least is aware of the pitfalls, the ubiquitous charlatanism, the lurking evil, and is better equipped to find the narrow path onward. He says that strong intention to do the practice necessary results mysteriously in doors being opened to one. If it is your destiny to find a good teacher, one will appear. Meanwhile lead a moral life. If one surrenders to art, to Beauty, one has largely learned how to surrender to God of which Beauty is one facet along with Love, Truth, the others.

What comes through the ‘Very High and Very Low’ columns, and profoundly, too, is Desani the philosopher and man of religion and for a bonus, a man of the world. He addresses the main questions of philosophy, theology, and human society which, of course, are not amenable to final answers. He explains why saying that high attainments of the Buddha and Yogis, those like him must, must, be experienced; that language, words, are of this world and share with all else of this world the ultimate result of causing pain and suffering. You can’t get to ‘heaven’ by talking about it. Naturally that applies also to ‘enlightenment’, nirvana, and such. God might be the ‘Word’, but that doesn’t mean you can talk your way into his grace, or any of the great beings that reside in him, the Lords, Divine Mothers, Devis, and so on.

On pdf page sixty-two I’d point out this gem. Paraphrase. Reality, the word, is a symbol, can’t be defined, can be truly and absolutely experienced. Bliss above, beyond all sensing, pure consciousness, the substratum of all attributes yet devoid of any and all (attributes), the entire Presence, and the entire Absence.

Insight: Desani demonstrates again and again his great capacity for learned commentary based on his study and assimilation of ancient Indian writings, thought, religion, philosophy, history, and art. To say his knowledge, and more importantly, his understanding dates back to prehistory, say, at least 5000 years, is an understatement. His genius is to bring this to a focus for his readers in that when he writes something, makes an observation, there is behind that a synthesis of ancient thought and real life experience, plus practiced applications of extreme esoteric methods, rituals, and the like, into a finely cut gem that he presents with his assessment of a situation.

Desani created literature. When he describes in detail his country of origin, the people come alive on the page in all their sordid meanness, greed, their filth, their follies, their triumphs and failures, their beauty, cleverness – all of it is put on display. Yes, its a sordid mess mixed up with high art and beauty and love and hate….in short he shows humanity as it really is. Yet, in the end, he maintains his detachment and with a twist works in great Truths about Reality, Time, Space, Metaphysics and the like. In the end the alert reader having been completely wrung out, is dumped pell mell into profound silence known as Kaivalyam there to deal with it as best possible. Writes that Silence is G_d. Literally. That experiencing Kaivalya as the Buddha did is a kind of death. Further writes that Buddhism is India’s greatest export [contribution to the world].

Desani is acutely aware of the problems of the Indian people and freely compares other cultures. He pulls no punches and it comes across clearly that he considers India a third world country badly in need of reform focused on supplying the basic needs of communities beginning with sanitation. He considers the ways of western countries far superior when it comes to sanitation, governance in general, and methods to address problems that arise from explosive population growth.

I doubt there is anyone alive on Earth who is capable of dealing honestly, forthrightly, with the Nadi writings in the way that Desani did. The sad truth is these writings and most of the “world view” therein presented will pass into history unappreciated unless spiritual awareness and growth become ascendant. Consider that Desani.org has been in existence for decades and to my knowledge no one has come forward that has the capacity to appreciate and further Desani’s work – other than Mr. Katz himself, of course. People say diamonds, precious stones, life itself as we know it, existing on planets orbiting suns across the galaxy, the cosmos, are rarities. No! What is rare is appreciation for Truth itself, for the Real itself, for those concomitants of consciousness, Love, Beauty, Wisdom, Liberty, Truth, and, finally, for Love of God.

Finally, as I’ve mentioned several times there is a ‘lost’ manuscript of Desani’s called “Rissala“. I am reliably informed that the “Very High and Very Low” columns are a major part of that manuscript.

*Samuel Beckett “Waiting for Godot”

Silence or Kaivalya

I couldn’t be more alone if I were the entire Universe.

One needs a lifetime to let that sink in.

And this: You come before your maker in humility. Satan argues with God. [Is it true that “Israel(ite)” means, translates as, one who does battle with the Deity (G_d)?]

And this: For every flower of love and charity he plants in his neighbor’s garden, a loathsome weed will disappear from his own, and so this garden of the gods – Humanity – shall blossom as a rose

It was Plotinus who said man’s existence and search for meaning and truth was the “flight of the alone to the alone”. This reminds me of a similar line from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding, “…the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”. So, to be a fully self realized person, it happens, requires a kind of mystical vision, is a mystical union.

The “One” of the ancient Greek Philosophers, of Plato, does not have existence in itself. Rather, it is that from which being emanates and though immanent in the Platonic Forms, necessarily has no separation and thus no being in itself. Being requires separation, requires temporality, requires dimensions. The One is eternal, not temporal, non-dimensional. And, it is not a noun, a thing, a person, a place. It is verbal. Realizing this requires the knower join with the known as knowing itself, again, in a kind of mystical union. [Its not a noun, its a verb.]

Tricky language. Language of poetry and philosophy are similar. They take the Soul to a precipice. You must make the leap….or not.  Afterwards how you got to the jumping off place is irrelevant. All that matters is you took the risk.

Cold, lonely, indifferent. Void. Silence. The Alone. There’s “No Exit”. That is the dark side. Don’t give in to that aspect. Yet, according to Buddhism, realizing “enlightenment” is to achieve the profoundest Silence called Kaivalya or Kaivalyam. This “Silence” can’t be explained, must be “experienced” yet is beyond experience. To see an image of the Buddha sitting in meditation gives a hint at the procedure. Words are worthless, an impediment.

But, only when you realize you are already there do you arrive. Mystical union, indeed. The banks of the river widen as you approach the ocean and ultimately embrace that with which they merge. Life is that river. Physical form is like the receding banks, yielding life to its origin.

This type of contemplation is intended, necessary, for us to shed our dualistic nature. It is, of course, seen as nonsense by most. I get that, but the effect is a cessation of our natural tendency to want to grasp, to “own” Truth, Love. Truth is transfigured through Love and Beauty. By Liberation one can see right through Beauty and/or Love to the Real itself, to Truth.

I don’t think satori, enlightenment, salvation, nirvana (nibbana) actually  lead to transcendence. The soul does not reach these after an actual journey. They are ours by Faith. Have Faith and “all these things will be added unto you”. For these are gifts, not attainments, for those who have found the path of Bhakti, Love of the Lord. It is our sacred duty to simply wait on the Lord.

It is the Flight of the Alone to the Alone.

More on Cultural Epochs

God descends into matter in order to re-emerge a self realized being. This is transfiguration on a cosmic scale.


Just beyond the fringe of our understanding true faith waits to take us from the sound of silence to the brilliant resonance of God’s glory.

Consciousness’ refinement from art through religion, science, history and finally philosophy is the process of awakening spirit as it extrudes (extricates or frees or liberates) itself from matter.

______________________

These are the general modes of man’s being in the world, mere stages on life’s way*. They do exhibit a progression. One merges nicely into the others. They comingle and represent the transfiguration of (inert) matter into self realised consciousness which this writer postulates to be a sufficient meaning and purpose of the whole cosmic activity.

R.G. Collingwood, the original author of this scheme, thought philosophy the natural culmination of the stages. Art, Religion, Science, History are the foundations or building blocks of that over arching structure, a fractalization. That is, each epoch, stage, is a reiteration of its precedent, slightly altered, modified, as in a tree where the twig is a modification of the trunk.

The purpose of Art is beauty and it asks man’s first question of the world. Who am I, and why? The purpose of religion is transfiguration. Man is a kind of becoming. The incomplete reaches for an ever distant fulfillment. The purpose of science is the apotheosis of knowledge but science only and ever lacks answers for each answer leads to further questioning. The purpose of History is utopia. So, beauty becomes transfiguration becomes complete knowledge becomes utopia, which these share, always being just over an ever receding horizon.

Philosophy teaches that we stare into the abyss+ – and are surprised to find it stares back with what some would claim is a deathly grimace. That is, the world is strangely bereft of true hope as we are seemingly on our own here.

The biggest mistake is, in the western world, christianity simultaneously embraces and rejects God’s covenant with man by misunderstanding man enjoys co-creator status. We own this (world). Were we not given dominion over the earth, according to the christian faith? What this writer has noticed is that christians tend to ruin the present with dreams of the future. Some would call this a sickness unto death*. I ask, since you have this dominion, when are you going to take charge?

This fatal flaw of christian doctrine permeates all subsequent permutations of the epochs and underpins the western culture and is fundamentally why we lurch from crisis to crisis. We increasingly live in chaos because we don’t have a valid logic of the universe.

And, there may not even be a fathomable logic, at least not for humans. However, as the opening quotes are meant to illustrate, strip orthodoxy from christianity, or religion in general, and simply live by faith. That is the answer. Purpose and meaning will find you; they are self generating through the mechanism we call life.

Also, as learned through my mentor, G.V. Desani, if you only have one religion you have a partial view of reality. I’d expand on that to say that if you are stuck in one or another mode of being as described here as cultural epochs, you likewise only have a partial view.

We struggle not in vain and reaching one summit we ought all to be gratified there is always on the horizon an even greater mount.
__________________________

+ Friedrich Nietzsche

*Soren Kierkegaard

Cultural Epochs

There is nothing that can be said that can do more for understanding the full meaning and purpose of life (enlightenment) than what a finger pointing at the moon can do for ‘seeing’ the moon. Zen proverb

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of man (kings). Proverbs 25:2

You ere if you mistake mere measurement for understanding. Acquarius

Paleolithic man saw the birth of Art. There is a premonition of Religion in all art but it was Neolithic man that saw its emergence. In our own social memory it was the Greeks that brought the epoch of Science into the world. History found its feet a mere century or two ago so the next phase can hardly have begun. The diagram serves to illustrate the phases of man’s becoming awareness, some would characterize it as his apotheosis.

Art doesn’t, can’t articulate that the real is a self manifesting first principle but beauty itself contains this germ. Being itself is a fundamental idea with the power to self manifest. It is potentiality with the power to actualize and the present is a realization or actualization of the past and future which are potentialities. Beauty is the primal element of the noosphere. Of art music lives in the moment but its yearning is for the next moment. It is the essence of restlessness, of finding completion in the infinite regress of the horizon beyond the now. This restlessness characterizes all subsequent modes of being discussed.

The christians generally can’t get past their feelings of guilt. Guilt is the father of anger, hatred, self loathing. Salvation is the undoing of guilt through forgiveness, redemption. Guilt is self loathing and makes it difficult if not impossible to achieve blamelessness through self sacrifice, to accept the self as sacred.

Speaking of science, if knowledge is always knowledge of something, then only reason leads to knowledge. All knowledge is through sense perception and memory. Direct knowledge, intuition, noesis, is not based on experience. So, science is strictly material in nature and its main flaw is in the non-material nature of understanding. There is understanding not based on knowledge. Science would never postulate or understand that matter conveys individuality and form universality.

It may be true that the whole is in some sense the same thing repeated endlessly, as Nietzsche is said to have thought. After all, for instance, all words come from the same alphabet yet somehow its possible to infinitely rearrange them in order for the New to constantly emerge. It might be more accurate to say that every instance of the Real is an elaboration of its predecessor or antecedent, similar to fractals.

This scheme is of course the brain child of R.G. Collingwood. His book Speculum Mentis is a beautifully written discourse on the subject. I’ve written about him several times here. A search of Collingwood results in seven items so I won’t link to them. I’m doing this addendum because I wanted to include the above diagram.

What is suggested by the stages is that there is an end within, Aristotle’s entelechy. This end within manifests first as Art, then Religion, and so forth. With each stage the end within changes. The artist gives beauty while the religious aims at union with a deity. The scientist works for the most elegant theory, expression of understanding of the world. The idea of history is that by stages the culture of man is perfected over time. The original beauty of artistic expression is still there but has evolved to encompass all that culture entails.

The end within an acorn is, of course, an oak tree. But if you make boards of the oak then the end within the acorn becomes, for instance, a table, among myriad other possibilities. The end within an acorn is also a stump, or fire for the hearth. This is a decent metaphor for the cultural epochs which is our subject here. The oak dreams of the acorn. The acorn dreams of the oak. The stump lives in them both.

Sentient life forms are an end within. Of what is unknowable but some understanding might be possible. What is knowable, I guess, is that it just started [on this planet] and given the expected life span of the sun has 4.5 billion or so “years” to manifest. Who are we, or what? Where did we come from? Where are we going? What is our purpose? Meaning? Any certain knowledge of these is not attainable. What is attainable is a gradual revelation of beauty, of truth, of love, of the end within. Cultural Epochs are expressions of the emergence of these qualities. How are we different from a rose in bloom…”such frost white felicity to shame the moon” * . Consider that before the emergence of man, of sentient life forms, beauty, truth, wisdom, liberty, love, did not exist but were in the rocks crying out, as it were. The whole of creation is an aspiration, a yearning, longing, a church spire reaching, a pine pointing, to these concomitants of consciousness to be made explicit.

Plotinus is said to have thought that existence, life, is a flight from the alone to the alone. Alone to alone equals a null. Yet even in this nothing exists flight, flight from one make believe to a somewhat different make believe. Its a journey, a process, so flight is all, totally encompassing, the point of departure being the same as the point of arrival. The Real is not a state, it is a becoming. Every attempt to own it begins from a false premise. One only owns things.

Think of T.S. Eliot: “We shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” From Little Gidding

* G.V. Desani wrote this.

Thoughts

 

“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves. ” Churchill

Category error: Every assertion has built in premises, assumptions about the nature of the Real. If the assumption is wrong, then the containing assertion or claim can’t be right. In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means. Our experience, connection to the Real, as embodied, individualized, localized beings is the first of these. Dan Simmons

“This finding adheres to a general pattern that imagining a given action or sensation is likely to be neurologically analogous to physically carrying out that action or experiencing that particular stimulus.” Link

“That’s why we’re here: the passing of time has no meaning unless experienced by conscious beings.” James Lileks

…or consciousness, truth, beauty. Time and these are universal but must be individualized, localized to be meaningful.

God hides in plain sight. He does not do the things man does, think, etc., but he is (there) when we do them.

Michael Hanlon on theory of “pocket universes” This sounds a lot like Aristotle: “If it is allowed by the basic physical laws (which, in this scenario, will be constant across all universes), it must happen. This idea from the Multiverse theory. And from Michael Hanlon on string theory: “The many worlds interpretation of quantum physics….states that all quantum possibilities are, in fact, real. When we roll the dice of quantum mechanics, each possible result comes true in its own parallel timeline. If this sounds mad, consider its main rival: the idea that reality results from the conscious gaze. Things only happen, quantum states only resolve themselves, because we look at them. As Einstein is said to have asked, with some sarcasm, would a sidelong glance by a mouse suffice?”

Me: The north pole can’t be definitely located, seen, but we know its there.

Hawking: If Einstein’s general theory of relativity is correct, the universe began with a singularity called the big bang. Now because it was a singularity, all the laws of physics broke down. And therefore we cannot predict how the universe began. A few years ago I was at a conference on cosmology that was held in the Vatican. And at the end of the conference the participants were granted an audience with the Pope. The Pope said it was fine for them to inquire into the early history of the universe, but they should not ask questions about the big bang itself… because that was the work of God. However, at that conference I proposed that Einstein’s general theory of relativity would have to be modified to take quantum mechanics into account. And that modification would mean that there was no singularity. Space time would be finite in extent, but with no singularities. In this picture, space time would be like the surface of the earth. It’s finite in extent, but it doesn’t have any boundary or edge or singularities.

Interviewer: SO IT WOULDN’T BE POSSIBLE TO SAY THAT REALLY THE UNIVERSE HAS A BEGINNING OR END, OR WHAT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO SAY ABOUT BEGINNING AND CAUSATION?

The universe… the universe would have a beginning and an end in the same sense that degrees of latitude have a beginning and an end at the north and south poles respectively. There isn’t any point with a latitude 91 degrees north. And similarly, there isn’t any point in the universe which is before the big bang. And the, but the north pole is a perfectly regular point of the earth’s surface, it’s not a singular point. And similarly, I believe that the big bang was a perfectly regular point of space time. And all the laws of physics would hold at the big bang. And if that is the case, we can completely predict the state of the universe from the laws of physics.

ALL OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS SEEMS TO BE DIRECTED TOWARDS THE EVENTUAL GOAL, THAT’S A UNIFIED FIELD THEORY, AN UNDERSTANDING OF FUNDAMENTAL LAWS THAT UNIFY ALL OF NATURE, INCLUDING MANKIND. WILL WE EVER FIND SUCH A THEORY, AND IF SO, WHAT COULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES?

I think it’s an open question as to whether we will find a complete unified theory. All I can say is that we don’t seem to have one at the moment.

YOU WERE SAYING THAT THERE MAY BE SUCH A THING . . .

We may never find a complete unified theory, but I think that there is a 50-50 chance that we’ll do so by the end of the century.

WHAT WOULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH A THEORY? WOULD WE THEN KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT PHYSICAL REALITY?

In principle, but not in practice. Because the equations are very difficult to solve in any but the simplest situations. We already know the laws of physics that underlie the behaviour of matter in normal circumstances. So in principle, we should be able to predict all of physics, all of chemistry and biology. But we’ve not had much success in predicting human behaviour from mathematical equations.

My commentary: Science posits the Real, the source of meaning and purpose, in an absolute other. It’s over the horizon and is called something like “complete unified theory” and would resolve the general theory of relativity with the (theories of) quantum mechanics, the physics of the very large with that of the very small. There are no concrete objects, but waves in force fields. Every discovery leads to new postulates as the absolute other is approached but never quite reached. Like going the speed of light requires ever more energy as one approaches light speed, to make the final leap requires all the known energy in the universe. I postulate that to calculate the grand unified theory similarly requires ever greater calculus and that eventually you run out of calculus coincidentally at the same moment you reach the ultimate theory. Ironically the evidence can’t be finally owned because it hides in plain sight. You can’t find it because the premise you don’t already have it is false.

What’s interesting is the notion that if its possible it will eventuate. Aristotle postulated this, too, and noted that unimaginable horrors were necessary conditions. Also notable is the absence of anything not quantifiable from these types of proceedings. Sean Carroll, for instance, dismisses philosophical insights relating to consciousness, the soul, and religious notions of transfiguration, for instance, as flowery speech. Science generally doesn’t consider anything that can’t be measured. Thus measurement becomes the sine qua non of knowledge. But knowledge isn’t the only path to understanding. Indeed it can be an impediment. It seems to me a grand unified theory would actually account for time, beauty, love, truth, and such coming to have meaning when actualized in a field of consciousness of a sentient life form. My personal grand notion, call it theory if you want, is consciousness is the instrument of the soul and the issue of Grace working through the emotions, through mind, to affect the apotheosis of matter.

If that’s too much to swallow then here is a simpe formula that is known to work: “Praise no day until evening, no wife until buried, no sword until tested, no maid until bedded, no ice until crossed, no ale until drunk.”


Is it really cold empty nothingness? When we “Gaze steadfastly at stars which though distant are yet present to the mind” do we bring the star to the mind or realize the star where it is as already in “our” mind? I’ve lost my note on who first made this observation though Parmenides made a similar statement. Another interesting notion in this regard is from quantum physics, reality results from the conscious gaze. I’d suggest James Lileks has it right when he says “Thats why we’re here: the passing of time has no meaning unless experienced by conscious beings.” Replace “time” with space, or for that matter beauty, truth, love, God, or, The Whole Universe, and we might realize we confer individuality on much more than just this body in which we find ourselves. The Universe might consist mostly of the void which, as Nietzsche sagely observed, begins to stare back at those pondering, at length, its depths, but its an interesting void.

Ponder the incomprehensible Otherness of the opposite…
woe has its wisdom, sorrow enlightens the soul.

We are all Don Giovanni

Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Vol. I

The overture begins with certain deep, earnest, uniform notes. Then we hear for the first time, infinitely far away, a hint which yet, as if it had come too early, is instantly recalled, until later one hears again and again, bolder and bolder, louder and louder, that voice, which first subtly and coyly, and not without anxiety slipped in, but could not force its way through. Sometimes in nature one sees the horizon thus heavy and lowering; too heavy to support itself, it rests upon the earth, and hides everything in the blackness of night; a single hollow rumble is heard, not yet in movement, but a deep muttering within itself-then one sees at the farthest limit of the heavens, remote on the horizon, a flash; swiftly it runs along the earth, and is instantly gone. But soon it comes again, it grows stronger; for a moment it lights up the whole heaven with its flame, in the next the horizon seems darker than ever, but more swiftly, even more fiery it blazes up; it is as if the darkness itself had lost its tranquility and was coming into movement. As the eye in this first flash suspects a conflagration, so the ear in that dying strain of the violin has a foreboding of the whole intensity of passion. There is apprehension in that flash, it is as if it were born in anxiety in the deep darkness-such is Don Juan’s life. There is dread in him, but this dread is his energy. It is not a subjectively reflected dread, it is a substantial dread. We do not have in the overture-what we commonly say without realizing what we say-despair. Don Juan’s life is not despair; but it is a whole power of sensuousness, which is born in dread, and Don Juan himself is this dread, but this dread is precisely the daemonic joy of life. When Mozart has thus brought Don Juan into existence, then his life is developed for us in the dancing tones of the violin in which he lightly, casually hastens forward over the abyss. When one skims a stone over the surface of the water, it skips lightly for a time, but as soon as it ceases to skip, it instantly sinks down into the depths; so Don Juan dances over the abyss, jubilant in his brief respite.

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Dread is our energy. It is substantial dread. Despair is not what we feel it is our life powered by sensuousness born in dread. Our joy of life is the daemonic joy of life hastening over the abyss. On cessation we sink into the depths our joy not even a bright memory.

This is the gift of Christianity positing, as it does, personal fulfillment on an ever receding horizon infinitely removed from who we really are.

Without memory there is no Real.

Note on Epistemology

We’re not supposed to know. Its a blessing that we don’t. By Grace we are protected from knowing. Bliss depends on this. Such knowing that we would live our lives in its discovery vanishes the moment it is grasped. Because. Knowledge presumes object(s). What if there are no objects? Is knowledge always knowledge of? Grasping and knowing are similar. The desire to own. My knowledge! Certainty. Attraction. Who is the knower? The known? Are they the same? How to dissolve this clinging…

Discovery is the action of the unknown. The less you know the more you create.

Recent untitled poem

The rite of spring
riot of blooms
rout of cold winds, winter’s bane
shivering bones
clattering in dismal dungeons dark

Violets are gone now
and iris and lily
bluebonnets take the stage
peerless blue to shame a cloudless sky

Pretty pink primrose too
takes the eye and
pink petal’s secret promise folds
virgin thighs’ blissful path

See me touch me
feel me smell me
please don’t pick me
let me cast seed and wither and die

I’ll be here every spring
past winter’s baleful fling
and if you fail to come again
my bloom our last visit will ever contain

Of all I am the flowering sum
Pinnacle of the past
nadir of the future
purpose centered everywhere bounded nowhere

John Hinds
2017