Further Reflections on the Nature of the Real

"Socrates said the same thing always, having only one thought, idea of universality.  Modern philosophy has many ideas, all having limited truth."

The idea that ‘reality’ results from the conscious gaze was mentioned in the previous post.  This notion is supposed to have been put forth by the proponents of quantum mechanic's so called "string theory."  It comports with a philosophical notion that I find has merit, that only that in which we believe is real.  People find themselves in a body in the world mediated by eyes, ears, etc., and come to believe that perceived phenomena are real.  This notion has been questioned by many down through the ages with Merleau-Ponty's statement that we must not wonder whether we really perceive a world, we must instead say, the world is what we perceive being a fair rendering of my personal position.  Assuming the world thus perceived is real, it follows that this reality is, because we believe it to be so, because, we can "see", have given it our "conscious gaze."  However, this leaves most in a quandary as to the "existence" of that which is beyond the phenomenal.  I've written many times about this but find myself going back to the subject again and again.  What about God and other non phenomenal attributes?

Ask not if God exists.  Ask if he is Real.  There are beautiful things, most would agree; in my scheme the "things" exist but not the "beauty", at least not until it is realized.   Beauty is not perceived in and of itself.  Beauty is only seen when there is first a thing.  Like the divine beauty is eternal; and truth, and Love, and so forth.  And what is Real is found only through faith.  Believe not and that reality falls away.  God is likewise manifest in things.  But God is not a thing except as a potentiality.  So he doesn't have existence, being eternal.  Nonetheless he is Real, the primal Real, but only for those who believe.  Truth, beauty, and love, etc., potentially manifest, but likewise require a "conscious gaze".  One makes a conscious choice to see or not see the truth, or the beauty of a phenomenal object.  A value judgement is made.  One makes a conscious choice to Realize the deity.  Failing to do so leaves one with an empty cold Universe where only ephemeral objects are real, and that only because we have affirmed them, and when they dissolve into that whence they arose, including the body in which the "conscious gaze" originates, all that can be said is that out of nothing comes nothing.  In the end if you have no faith, nothing is your reward.

Commentary on Grand Unified Theory

"In the order of intelligible things his intelligence holds the same rank as does his body in the expanse of nature, and all it can do is perceive the appearance of the middle of things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or their end. All things proceed from the nothing, and are led towards the infinite. Who can follow these marvellous processes? The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do so."
Blaise Pascal

"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.  We are confronted with the incomprehensible Otherness of the opposite.  Today I see woe has its wisdom, sorrow enlightens the soul.

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?’"

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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."
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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 would reach the ultimate theory.  Anyhow, Hawking says, the theory can't be solved in anything but the simplest situations and then only in principle, not in practice. I think 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.  The mention that ‘reality’ results from the conscious gaze does indeed border on a line of inquiry that gets into territory normally shunned by physics, by science.  But Hanlon says it seems mad.  James Lileks could have formulated his statement thusly.

What's also interesting is the notion that if a reality is 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.  And religion, it's parent, or at least predecessor, tends to shun measurement.  Thus, for science, measurement becomes the sine qua non of knowledge. You own reality by taking measure of it.  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.  Art, religion, science, history, and philosophy as developmental stepping stones, as stages on life's way, taken together give better results than any one taken alone.  Consciousness is directed outward in all but the last, just asking the question, or positing the answer in a false other.  In philosophy consciousness actually returns on itself ever going out only to find that outwardness is another way of looking at inwardness.  This scheme is elaborated by R. G. Collingwood, and Soren Kierkagaard.

People, science won't believe in God because they have no proof, evidence.  They fail to realize evidence always pertains to some thing and that God is not a separate thing unto himself.  Its closer to reality that he is all that is in which case the "evidence" is hiding in plain sight.  He can't be parsed from the whole of reality: neither can you. If you must have evidence look at the  back of your hand, look at all that is, for the whole thing is God is as valid a statement as he is not, doesn't exist.  Precisely.  We perceive ourselves, taking that as evidence we exist and at the same time as the paradigm for the proof of anything at all.  Self measure is established as the measure of all things.  We anthropomorphize the whole of reality.

Extending our mind with mathematical equations we define alternately increasingly fine and/or gross models of reality.  We see particles so small, the Higgs Boson, for instance, the so called "God" particle, they revert to fields of energy, and worlds so dense and large, black holes, that their matter assumes  the distribution observed in the whole Universe.  Our mind holds these realities as we extend our experiments searching out valid proofs.  But the mind was always there with the proofs coming behind.  What kind of world is it where mind is centered everywhere, bounded nowhere? No matter where we focus our technologically enhanced senses, our mathematically precise concepts, we find, if we care to notice, consciousness, mind, precedes us.  Our reach always exceeds our grasp.

If that's too much to swallow then here is a simple 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 there an Apriori Realm? Existentialism, Essence, and Existence

We must not, therefore, wonder whether we really perceive a world, we must instead say: the world is what we perceive.

M. Merleau-Ponty

Perception…. is the background from which all things stand out.

M. Merleau-Ponty

More Merleau-Ponty: "….doubt….could never finally tear us away from truth. …in so far as we talk about illusion, it is because we have identified illusions, and done so solely in the light of some perception which at the same time gave assurance of its own truth. We are in the realm of truth and it is the experience of truth which is self evident. The experience of truth is self evident. To seek to ground this in a more pervasive claim, such as Descartes’ doctrine of doubt, would prove unfaithful to my experience of the world; one should be looking for what makes that experience possible instead of looking for what it is. The self evidence of perception is not adequate thought or apodeictic self-evidence. The world is not what I think, but what I live through."

To be limited is in turn to be a limit because it is not possible to say which defines a thing/limit more, its definition of itself or its definition in the terms of that which it limits.

Consciousness I see as non ego and if I am only conscious then I am living in the original image of man in the the world, i.e., everything is equally conscious. The advent of ego awareness makes consciousness ‘mine’ but not really because ‘I am of the universe’ and to say something is ‘mine’ is therefore absurd, tautological - it says the universe owns itself.

If consciousness is truly passive it can’t be affected. It is the background –as passive- for change, and change appears intelligible by virtue of the passiveness of the illuminating nature of consciousness.

So the void (consciousness) is like a mirror that stands, as it were, ‘behind’ the ego and functions as a perfect mirror – it reflects (illuminates) absolutely indiscriminately and equally whatever is immediate to the ego. And since the void is infinite, consciousness will be the same for any possible ego, i.e., infinite.

Since consciousness is coextensive with the void then an explanation of consciousness in physical terms would be an explanation of vacuum in physical terms, i.e., there is nothing physical about it.

By virtue of the infinite quality of consciousness I can abstract my “self’ and go, with abstraction, anywhere to do anything. That is to say, I can ‘picture’ in my mind the configuration of the sun, moon, from above/outside. I can visualize being outside, at an almost infinite distance, the whole cosmic reality, seeing the ALL as a mere luminous dot/unity. I had this dream/experience/vision while a child.  Must I not have already been there in some sort of way to do this?

Valence: clinging by vectors/same energy levels/inclination/tendency

People participating in religious, artistic, musical, scientific, etc. activities participate in a movement of mind/matter spread over space and time. The direction of these endeavors depends on the valencies of the participating people, in their thinking and doing being combined in a total historical movement, e.g., communism, etc. How can the world shake these patterns? How can we be free of harmful tendencies/habits? Just by seeing and doing….?

…..and again how does one articulate in a vacuum? Easy! Out of an utter sense of newness, freshness, vitality, and the assurance that nothing whatever is in our way, finally speaking. We will go wherever our inclination takes us. The only choice we have is how we will be inclined. And isn’t that just seeming as well?

At the center of all inclination/intention is the thirst for the real. This is irreducible…..and untouchable in the sense that you can’t see yourself, who and what exactly you are without first relaxing the process generating that end. This is the first thing, the beginning of true life. This is the state of vulnerability. It is where the first and last risks are taken. If you learn properly to take a risk, if you can relax to a deep enough level, you can act on what you see laid out before you with certainty and precision. You know your acts go to their mark, because you have seen everything there is to be seen.

Repeated acts are volitional to their own repetition. Deeds of a kind attract, ergo, bad doing equates to bad company; ergo, its possible to attract “higher beings” good and bad.  Every "doing" generates and is sustained by its own spirit/life force.  Go once to charity or love or compassion and it is easier to do so again.  The same is true for the opposite.  Spirits grows by participation.

Whatever is, whether one or many, participates in the Real. This participation provides one commonality. Allow that it may be that the only way objects can appear to be separate is in part because they really are not.

Our own perceptions are among the class of external objects as well as ideas, knowledge, sensation, etc.

Consciousness is primordial, I think. In the sense that it is a universal principle that the “One” should be awakened as we awaken (to our godliness), “God” rises to self consciousness in human awareness; on the emergence of sentience.

About gestalt versus sequential views of the Real: Perhaps some see the universe as a gestalt, perhaps a very young child, for instance, but “man” sees the same universe in terms of sequential images in his vain attempt to rationalize with propositional relations what Camus calls the absurd realm, that realm outside our consciousness. To accomplish this ominous task would presume the necessity, and even the possibility, of placing in one to one correlation, an abstract, verbal (or mathematical) proposition with every atomic proposition and every possible combination of all atomic propositions. Our universe will probably be approaching inclusion in this particular pulse of its symbiotic, onomatopoeic existence. Man should recognize, as a pragmatic fact, that the universe is a tautology and that each thing that is will continue to be, only in different space and time. Man should learn, therefore, to function temporally, but from an eternal perspective… Strive to see the whole instead of its nebulous parts as the ground of reality.

Existentialism has two schools. The christian school of Jaspers, Marcel and the Atheist one of Sartre, Heidegger.

Atheistic existentialists have in common the belief that existence precedes essence or that subjectivity is the starting point.

Your Christian existentialist holds that production precedes existence. To build the first table the artisan had to have conceived its image, its essence, before setting to work. God is considered a superior sort of artisan.

And again, the atheist view is that man is the only being in which existence precedes essence. Consciousness precedes thought, for instance. Man appears, defines himself and all other things. He makes himself what he is, as the essence he defines is, by a necessity of language, subjectivity. He is responsible for himself and, at the same time, all other men.

Say that man is chained to human subjectivity, this is the essential meaning of existentialism. By choosing his own will man chooses mankind's will as he always picks the good over the evil. There is not an apriori realm, and there is nothing for man to cling to either within or without himself.  When clinging arises wisdom is shut out.

Those unfortunates who spend their lives waiting on God sadly miss the point that God is waiting on them.  Many live in hope of getting a better gig in "heaven".  Really, we already have a gig in heaven.

A Table

But is there an actual "table", for instance, if every instance is somehow different from every other? Is the rose ever actual or is the actualization of the rose, and the table, in itself endless? And man? In what sense is he never fulfilled, complete? Doesn't this touch on the lack of concreteness in beauty, truth, wisdom, understanding, and, of course, Love, and Liberty? Isn't it why God himself must be taken on Faith? For how does one grasp, hold, have, keep what is itself a kind of infinite potentiality? Consider that the "reason" we can never have final knowledge about anything is because nothing in itself is ever final.  Understanding is available but comes with a leap beyond mere reason, a leap from having to being.  Being or Having...you figure it out.

The Word

 
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John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Luke 19: 35-40  And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.  And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.  And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;  Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.  And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

The intake of your breath is the exhalation of the universe.  Your exhalation is the breathing in of the Universe.

In my last post I wrote about the first act of creation, of the principle of illumination.  But what is the Word?  Isn't it just a primordial principle capable of self actualizing.  Think of Greek Logos or Hebrew Davar;  first principle with the power to manifest itself, or, potentiality with the power to self actualize.  Then think of the rose.  The actualization of the rose is endless.  There is no actual rose, only potential.   Likewise, there is no concrete "word" or "truth" or "beauty".  There is no now, no present.  Try and hold onto one.  If there were we could own these but since we can't we are only borrowers.  The word is in the manifested cosmos, and vice versa, as the rose is in the bud and the bud is in the rose; for every actuality there is a new potentiality.  And, my sight of the rose is the rose's means of seeing itself.

We know nothing, really, any more than we can hold onto the present.  It's best to let God keep his secrets.  Many claim God "loves" them.  I don't know but intuit rather that God is Love.  We are blessed to participate in this Love and in this moment; my concern is not that he loves me but that I love him.  The potentiality of love of the deity is in the very rocks at our feet.  The emergence of sentient life gives voice to these stones.  It's because we don't or can't fully know that we have a sense of wonder, awe, and an appreciation of beauty and truth. These keep us searching, make the journey ever new whether it really is or not.  Were the truth about the ultimate purpose and meaning of existence vouchsafed to us reality might be as boring to us as it must be to God without his life in and through his creation.  Christ is the word made flesh, it is written.  I write that the whole of Reality is the manifesting Word.

The Star of David and the symbol for the Hindu sacred syllable Om.  The esoteric meaning of the Star of David is that God descends into matter in order to reascend a self realized spiritual being.  That is another way of stating Christ is the word made flesh.  I think the Om symbol has the same meaning.  The sacred syllable Om is the equivalent of the Word.  Our voice is the rocks crying out.

"The Universe is in us", he says in this video.

Preaching, Passion, and Illumination

"It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms - A physicist is the atom's way of knowing about atoms..." -George Wald

"...no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Meditation on these points. The subject is that which is in the object that can stand outside the object and view itself. The faculty for this is consciousness.

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I continue my reading of Aristotle at the Metaphysics as an oblique reference to these thoughts.

I don't find the word preacher appealing.  It means minister or sermonizer.  It also means Ecclesiastic.  But Solomons are rare.   My problem is, I guess, and they are not alone in this at all, preachers make you feel the heat but if you want to see the light, move on because the heat of their passion effectively blocks out any enlightenment.  Conceded, heat is a form of light, and does give comfort if you are out in the cold.  So does passion, and they do communicate passionately, and this is good because faith begins in the heart.  It is felt, not reasoned.  That feeling is the first tentative step to wisdom, understanding, light.  Preachers compare to sophists.  Rhetoric is their main faculty; and they both pass the collection plate from Protagoras on down.  But truth can't be conveyed rhetorically.  Truth is not something that can be taught, or bought.  Only "things" are teachable.  Truth might inform things.  So might beauty.  But you can't teach beauty any more than truth itself.  Both are available to be realized, not learned.  Truth and beauty and the other concomitants of consciousness are aspects, facets, of the spirit that confer universality.  Sermonizers pray for this or that, implying they have power to move God in their favor, and, more to the point, that you can too.  Well, "Deeds can't dream what dreams can do", but, intention plays a greater part, I think, than actual work on behalf of the petitioner by the divine creative force behind the whole existential Reality.  What really happens in these settings is a longing for the Real, for truth, is set up but never fulfilled.  Instead they are satisfied with their dogma, which can be taught, and is bought, dearly.  But dogma does not confer universality and truth does and the sophist's belief he has a direct pipeline to truth, in the final analysis, tragically shuts off the possibility of discovery.

To be clear, I don't doubt the divinity of Christ, or any man, not that all men are Gods.  Is a drop of water the ocean?  I submit Christ understood how it was, and more importantly, how it wasn't.  People following this path like to say, "I know God loves me."  First of all, how selfish.  Secondly, say to them, if God loves everything the same then it begins to look a lot like indifference, and watch their eyes glaze over.  Their God is anthropogenic and the lie to their "faith" is that the more they pursue it the more they claim certitude.  Its true, rather, that real faith results in greater doubt, trepidation, humility, the closer one approaches the divine.  In the end one arrives at a sort of infinite resignation that knowing God is impossible.

Its written that in the beginning was the Word and the first act of creation was of light.  Leaving aside what is the Word think of the light as principle, not as visible light, per se.  As principle, illumination is participated in by the various forms, the concomitants of consciousness, e.g. Love, Liberty, Truth, Beauty, Grace, Wisdom, and so on.  All of these pertain to the substance of things; they are aspects of the indwelling spirit, of the potentiality inhering in the energia of matter and of the entelechy, the end within.  It is the form of things that facilitate display of these and in doing so universality is conferred on the subject by their presence.  The form makes a thing, a painting, for instance, individual, but it is the beauty that gives it appeal, universality.  Forms make the concomitants intelligible, available, individual.  The concomitants make the individuals universal.  People like to ask what a work of art means.  It doesn't mean anything.  It is a question; Who am I?  If it is a beautiful piece the answer is; I am everything that is.  My meaning and purpose consists in the instantiation of beauty in this individual object.  Likewise for love and the others.  You can't teach love, liberty, wisdom, grace, beauty, but your life is enriched beyond compare if you can find paths that participate in the divine light in which these qualities facilitate the awakening, the apotheosis, of the divine.  You can be Love, Freedom, Wise, Grace, Beauty; Truth can be lived.  No learning necessary.  To borrow from T.S. Eliot, the drop of water slips into the shining sibilant sea and arriving where it began knows the place for the first time.

September Birthdays

My son, Christopher M. Hinds, turned 26 this past Sunday.  Granddaughter, Eleanor Margarete Hinds, was two Sept. 6.  Nice photos at this link, Au Coeur blog.  They live on Nantucket.  Also, Christopher's mother, Helen Elizabeth Ragsdale was born this month.  Sept. 16.

God is Beyond Experience

Soren Kierkegaard, the great Christian philosopher, wrote that "God does not think, he creates.  God does not exist, he is eternal."  Athiests ignorantly deny God because they can't find empirical evidence.  At the same time religionists claim they do experience God, many claiming to even talk to "him", but mostly they "feel" his presence.

But, experience is anthropomorphic.  God can't be experienced any more than can eternity and his mind can't be known because thinking is not his function.  Knowing his creation is knowing his work, surely, but not him directly.  Experience relates to things.  You are a thing.  All you experience is a thing.  God is not a thing.  You can't experience not thing, God.  He doesn't exist, he creates.  When my religious friends say they can feel the spirit of God they are really feeling themselves.  That is, their religious experience is a form of self love, self worship.  Finally, Being is not the same thing, infinitely.  Each instance is all there is and the next an entirely new creation but based on the preceding.  Does a waterfall ever change?  Can you put your hand in the same river twice?  Essence does not precede existence.  Existence precedes essence; Existential means this.  To say essence precedes existence is to claim to know God, an impossibility. The form of a table is new for every instance of table, just like the river or the waterfall.

Poised on the Edge of Oblivion

The Scream, 1893, Edvard Munch

From Play It Again Sam, 1972

WOODY ALLEN:  That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?

GIRL IN MUSEUM:  Yes it is.

WOODY ALLEN:  What does it say to you?

GIRL IN MUSEUM:  It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

WOODY ALLEN:  What are you doing Saturday night?

GIRL IN MUSEUM:  Committing suicide.

WOODY ALLEN:  What about Friday night?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: [leaves silently] 

In a constant state of dread wanting only to understand with the full knowledge that is impossible.  G. K. Chesterton thought the madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything but his reason.  Reason is the giver of false hope.  If it's reasonable, if it can be measured, is that the same as knowing, as understanding?  I don't think so.  All one Knows really is the metric, that by which measurement is made and that metric when reduced to the lowest common denominator is the thing, our physical body.  Measurement is not understanding but it might lead to same.  When attachment arises wisdom is shut out.  That something is reasonable ends up being such attachment.  Any answer worth anything can only be intuited.  It's direct, unfiltered, knowledge that satisfies the heart.  The darkness that is ever dogging us, the dread of meaningless and essentially empty purpose leaves one with only one choice, to be taken with infinite resignation, and that is the leap of faith.  The reasonable man wants to own truth but what's true is that truth owns him.


If the whole of reality is an apotheosis then it seems obvious every instance is new.  "G_d" wouldn't waste time doing the same thing over and over.  This obviates Nietzsche's  notion that its the same thing  repeated infinitely.  The very fact that species mutate is proof enough the process more resembles a fractal than a simple progression; and any eventuation is rooted in a universal principle.  Light, e.g., is not just light, but an expression on many levels of the principle of illumination.  The nucleus of an atom illuminates its electrons follows the same principle that a star illuminates its planets and a lord his disciples.  Likewise, the star confers universality on the planets and they confer on the star individuality.  Aristotle thought matter conferred universality, form individuality.  In the same vein, God gives man universality while man confers on the Deity individuality.  He is the author of apotheosis, his creation the instrumentality.  He doesn't just live in his creatures, but through them he knows himself, has the illusion of sleeping and waking, dieing and being born.  It is infinitely self-inventing, and every instantiation increases and enriches the pregnancy for ensuing evolution. All that will ever be is already actual in the "beginning" even though all that will ever be is an elaboration on the infinite stream of prior instances. Every new instance is a new beginning and a new boundary for the new. Every new instantiation is an elaboration of its predecessor. And, our heavens are self made as are our hells. It's all about individual responsibility and self-reliance. Belief in nothing gets you just that.

The Cultural Psychopathology of Don Juanism

"Gaze steadfastly at stars which though distant are yet present to the mind."

"When attachment arises wisdom is shut out."

I am in your eyes for others to see.

Bodies mediate the meeting of souls; but souls meet each other immediately when eyes meet. The depth in the pupil of the eye is the quiet place that gives meaning to such encounters. Just a glance into the eyes of another is to directly encounter the depths of the abyss rendering attachment impossible. Creatures are often startled by another's gaze, and rightly so, for at that moment infinity looks into infinity.

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Eroticism, Music, and Madness (Cont'd)

Meaning presupposes itself. Formal activity in the human mind has its roots in the form paradigmatic for an individual, namely, the body, and the paradigmatic act is speech, utterance, giving of the word, rooted in the Greek, Logos, reason, the word; controlling principle of the universe manifest by speech. From the Bible, John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the word was made flesh.." Giving of the Word, the first principle, is like the axle of a wheel, all meaning, movement, is presupposed, sensible, in so far as the center, the first principle, the axle, is stationary.

Language has a way of assuming the form of its objects. We say chair to reference a real thing. Math and music have an abstract relationship to existential mass. Mathematics has in common with music the fact that it does not have reflex pronouns, egocentric particulars; it has no terms like speech. Music has element in time, mathematics not. Music and mathematics take us out of the world; attending to them in a sense places one in a non-material place. But mathematics is static as a medium while music is a dynamic medium. Mathematics takes us out of the world in the Cartesian sense that it is of the mind which is separate from body. Mathematics joined with science and technology becomes a dynamic which hurriedly takes us out of the world, much more than music; consider nuclear weapons, e.g.  People aren't careful with their speech as in times past and as speech has become less responsible music has taken over, it is that by which we are encouraged to fulfill, or rather escape from ourselves.

What about expression in architecture? Architecture employs the concrete medium of existential mass. Look at the endurance of the thrusting movement of architecturally rendered faith, the leap toward edification seen in a great Gothic cathedral. Architecture is concrete by virtue of its duration in time; it endures of itself. Words must be spoken, mathematical formulas contemplated, but music is the true contrary of existential mass in respect of being the most abstract medium. It does not endure by itself in time, but only by virtue of its being played. Architecture endures by itself in time because it also exists in space; music has no existence in space, and thereby lacks the characteristic of enduring in time, so we can say that music is the most abstract medium.

What does it mean for a medium to be the most abstract? It means, simply, that it is most minimal. Don Juan seeks immediacy. He minimizes the mediate. Mystery, discover, the sense of being on the brink of life fulfilling experience grows with increasing economy of means, and increasing risk.  Musical life has the highest economy; it only exists in time and abstracts the soul thus from the material.  Ambition is alien and confining to the basic truth of reality for the sensuous genius, which is openness or vulnerability itself.   Music minimizes the mediate, and in this respect it is the ideal expression of Don Juanism. The apparent flow of time is the most essential characteristic of immediacy. In mediation there are varieties of things which come to us one at a time, sequentially. Remove the sequential aspect of the world of objects as they pass in the stream of consciousness and you have immediacy. In immediacy sequentiality becomes secondary to the ostensible flow of time just in itself thus obviating the intentional thickness of consciousness which results from the repression of unselective consciousness in favor of selective consciousness. Music carries us away, out of ourselves, destroying intention. Architectural expression of Christian faith points to the heavens as where the human soul will find completion. Music likewise expresses a reaching for what is impossibly beyond grasping. The word was made flesh and flesh artificially separates itself from that paradigmatic act that is being lost in the spirit of the sensuous. The long sabbatical from language and the descent into the musical expresses the urge for immediacy, to be in the world but not of it. Self gratification regardless of the consequence is the hallmark. Don Juanism is cultural psychopathology. Narcissism, confusion, and estrangement are its fruits. The implications of unrestrained sensuousness date from the romantic period, the revolt of the 18th and early 19th century against the artistic, political, philosophical, and religious principles associated with neoclassicism. It is characterized in literature and philosophy by irrationality, fancy, fabulousness, impracticality, and emphasizes above all else feeling and originality. It is of the heart, not of the mind. Everything is transitory, the individual self is the only certitude. The most valid response to anything is the emotional one. From the religious to the political, from the artistic to the scientific, this error of elevating feelings above all other consideration reigns. The wheel has come off the axle.  Emotion has its place but when conflated with faith whether in religion, science, or anything else, and sought as an end in itself, when this attachment arises, wisdom is shut out, spiritual devolution follows. One hears in the exhortations of the fanatics whether religious, scientific, or whatever, that they are addicts of their own pathos.  One hears in their tearful, dolorous  apocalyptic prophecy a music of exhortation calling us to their version of the only dance there is.  They have completely lost sight of Truth.  There are real consequences to having a false concept of reality.  I like to say the world is infinitely malleable; we get to make of it whatsoever we wish.  That is, in fact, our commission.  But without a solid foundation it gets increasingly difficult to keep the thing from collapsing.  Man is in his infancy yet.  So take heart.  The Sun will be here for another four and a half billion years and continues to orbit the hub of the Milky Way every 280 million years.  That wheel goes round and round while false religion, science, politics, and philosophy will have their day and in passing give sustenance to new growth.  The Word, Logos, and other expressions of the first principle endure forever and when you look deeply into another's eyes you can see forever the stars there which though distant are yet present to the mind.

Tacking Into the Wind

Occasionally I get hits associated with "tacking into the wind" searches, so I thought I'd put up a picture. It's just a way of making headway even when forces are aligned against you. If you approach things obliquely you'll find that you can often slide around the obstacles. It's sort of like going through the valleys to get over the mountains. Often we aren't equipped to meet adversity, the winds of change, head on. Tackle overwhelming impediments from their weak points, from the side, from an unexpected avenue of approach or concealment, in order to turn their torque into an harnessable force.

I have sailed. We all have. Once upon a time the world was defined by sail. It was a principle of the emergence of civilization. I sailed mostly very small craft which easily capsize, but can just as easily be righted. There is a great personal thrill to be enjoyed in running very close to a hard wind on the razor edge of loosing it all. In such risk lies realization that immeasurable discovery is the action of the unknown. In a heart beat your boat is on its side and you are swimming now, not sailing, but it only takes a minute to right the thing and make another run. The stronger the wind the better, for we tire of mundane challenges and long to really test our abilities against the impossible.

_______________________

Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist.

Pozzo: ....one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second...they give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. On!

Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett

Yoga and Vipassana Meditation

Yoga and Vipassana Meditation, pdf of a lecture by Professor Desani in Rangoon, Burma.  I've written about Desani elsewhere in this blog. Desani.org, linked in my right panel, hosts this pdf.  I'm grateful to Todd Katz for his efforts in maintaining the Desani.org site.

De Generatione et Corruptione

Everywhere Aristotle utilizes the phases of qualities passing into and out of their opposite states as an anchor to the progress of his thinking.  Generation and Corruption studied as contraries is fitting to this basic principle or method and it fits his contention that the Real is always at least two in number.

Coming to be necessarily implies the pre-existence of something which potentially 'is', but actually 'is not';  and this something is spoken of both as 'being' and as 'not-being'.

Coming to be occurs in the region about the centre. (of the Universe, i.e., Earth)  The originative sources of generation are first matter and form.  A third originative source must also be present for while it is characteristic of matter to suffer action, i.e. to be moved:  to move, i.e. to act, belongs to a different 'power'.  Things assume forms which are their essential nature.

The third originative source is the alternating approach and retreat of the Sun, which corresponds with generation and corruption.  "Coming-to-be and passing-away will, as we have said, always be continuous, and will never fail owing to the cause we stated. And this continuity has a sufficient reason on our theory. For in all things, as we affirm, Nature always strives after 'the better'. Now 'being'... is better than 'not-being': but not all things can possess 'being', since they are too far removed from the 'originative source. 'God therefore adopted the remaining alternative, and fulfilled the perfection of the universe by making coming-to-be uninterrupted: for the greatest possible coherence would thus be secured to existence, because that 'coming-to-be should itself come-to-be perpetually' is the closest approximation to eternal being."

The cause of this perpetuity of generation is circular motion:  for that is the only motion which is continuous.  "... if there is to be movement... there must be something which initiates it; if there is to be movement always, there must always be something which initiates it; if the movement is to be continuous, what initiates it must be single, unmoved, ungenerated, and incapable of 'alteration'; and if the circular movements are more than one, their initiating causes must all of them, in spite of their plurality, be in some way subordinated to a single 'originative source'."

"...a thing is eternal if its 'being' is necessary:  and if it is eternal, its 'being' is necessary.  And if, therefore, the 'coming-to-be' of a thing is necessary, its 'coming-to-be' is eternal;  and if eternal necessary.


"It follows that the coming-to-be of anything, if it is absolutely necessary, must be cyclical---i.e. must return upon itself....


"The result we have reached is logically concordant with the eternity of circular motion, i.e. the eternity of the revolution of the heavens."


I seize on a couple of statements here in particular, for instance, coming to be is an effort by grace to mirror the divine's eternal being by itself being a coming to be perpetually;  he says a gift of God.  And the idea put forth that generation being circular exhibits the characteristic of returning on itself echos the notion that the essential nature of consciousness shares the same trait.

So, the center, Earth, is where generation and corruption take place and the ultimate cause is bound up in,  is made perceptible, by the circular movement of the fixed stars in the outer most sphere, that is, heaven.  The abode of the imperishable and perfect affects all the coming to be and passing away we creatures suffer in the lowest regions, the Earth.  The Sun is made to follow its alternating approach and retreat by the higher revolutions of the outermost sphere of fixed stars.  It in turn imparts the necessity of generation and corruption to what is beneath its orbit.   Aristotle further assigns decreasing powers to the elements both primary and simple being Earth, Air, Fire, Water which in their turn come and go in their own orbits alternatively creating and destroying what is within their purviews.


Next, De Anima

Creatrix Singularity

If man, Jesus, is the Word made flesh, the machine as singularity is the daemonic embodied; an embodiment of the daemonic in nature. It is an elevation of the original sin to a machine, mechanistic principle. I give you Creatrix Singularity 60 by 50 inches, acrylic on canvas, art by Me, about 1970:

The feeling here is there won't be feeling, heart, warmth, and intuition to counterbalance reason if computational heuristics is promoted as the evolute of consciousness mediating life in the world to the disadvantage of organic based beings. Welcome to the cold calculus of an infinite regress of efficiency to worlds without end where under the umbrella of the Dyson swarm love, beauty, truth, wisdom, and most of all, liberty, shrivel and die.

If you'll look closely here you'll see the separation of the two isosceles triangles of the Star of David symbolizing man's supplanting with himself the cosmic apotheosis.

Nadi Shastras - Personal Notes from Readings by Prof. Desani

This has been crossposted with an introduction at http://professordesani.blogspot.com/

Nadi Text, June 29, 1980

If there is only one religion, you will have a partial view of the world.

Treat all life as your own, small and large.

Nundi Deva and Shiva Yogi are the "speakers."

This text spoken before Buddha. Talks of Jainism, Buddhism before they appeared in the world and says one more religion will appear in Kaliyuga - Christianity.

The Lord incarnated, it said, as Buddha, Christ, Desani, etc. Eleven parts of the Lord.

Gives birth date, place, time, etc., parents, horoscope, of Buddha, Christ, Desani.

Of Christ, "He is Immanuel, Deva Kurna (sp.). There was a comet in the sky for three days. They fled to Egypt, to avoid edict of government....." His color is green, he is Love... "Twelve disciples, St. Paul wrote history."

Crucify: Prana left body, and they killed his physical body, Prana in Maya Svarupa (illusionary form) appears later. (He is risen.) He will appear in Maya Svarupa to some few devotees.

"After 1984 the people will get very angry. The government will do anything they want."

(aside: When you get angry evil beings get inside you. Buddha said if you control anger you could control the world...)

"Water will be bad, there will be bad gasses in the air, the food will be scarce."

"Why so many Shastras for Desaniman - 42? They are like God's treasures. Desaniman will know their purpose." (He gleans them for publishing.)

The five elements (Punja (sp) Bhutas are parts of Prakriti) are in the body. These perform their function, but they should receive proper help from the 6th sense, reason. Purity follows using 6th sense to control five elements.

(aside: Prakriti is conscious. This is the basis of magic.)

The same Tattvas do not apply to all religions.

"You are to control your mind and do Dhyana," then say, "Thy will be done."

If love of the lord is used for love of the self then it is not true Bhakti.

1983 - He might move to another country to avoid bad effect due to planetary positions. Might die in 8 years or 1988.

Prana/life and body are different from each other.

Sin and virtue go with Prana at time of death.

Atma (behind the body and Prana) is pleased by talk of Bhakti.

______________________________________

Nadi reading July 5, 1980

Gives 36 Tattvas - essential things | Dance of the Lord

Shiva - Rudra (speaks)
Shiva Yogi is there - This being has been identified with Desaniman - they are the same being.

The body is Shakti, life is Prana.
The Lord lives in us always.

All things happen according to the will of the Lord, if you are a Bhakta.

If you have affections for others, you have affection for the Lord.

Anger causes early death.

We should do good for other Bhaktas.
Do not speak against anyone. It will act as a curse, a bad deed. Such deeds reduce Satguna (sp) in one. Do not use poisonous words against others. If our state of mind is at peace, others will be at peace..

Avoid making friendships, takes away from Bhakti.

Karma affects even the Gods, their deeds.

We should not delay doing our works, our good works.

Shiva is Prana. The Lord, preserver, creator, destroyer.

Keep Atma in Bhakti, keep Prana dedicated to the Lord. (Jivsamadhi, 24th dance (of the) Tattvas.)

Do not desire status, high position. Do not be hasty, if something does not come to a Bhakta then have an aversion for that.

Upadesha - instruction.

We must love our families.
The (red) Lord - destroyer.
If the Atma is not pure, the Lord will destroy it.

Our bodies are Shri Yantras. The Divine Lord, the Divine Father are in the heart.

In the 32d dance, the five recede to the first, radiance. If the 5 - Punja Bhutas - are controlled they become "friends."

Reduce salt, sour, hot, irritants, bitter: five elements reveal themselves as tastes, too.

Not too much sweetness.
Sweetness causes knowledge.

Anger is encouraged by hot (and meat), sour, salt, (but these) should be added in balance, then the kundalini does not get exaggerated, instead there is sukha, ease.

To avoid (or during) sickness due to imbalance of these tastes, take milk, and milk curds. Take these tastes occasionally with no harm, take without greed, take as blessing.

Instruction: Take food offered from Bhaktas, accept all, decline none.

_________________________________

Nadi reading November 29, 1980

#1 "He is 72 (DOB, Jul. 1, 1909) He is 'form of the Lord' "

#2 "Shiva Yogi is disciple of Nundi Deva. Shiva Yogi meditates in the Himalayas waiting for Desaniman to die, come to him."

Text instructs: "Guard against self worship!"

Text mentions: "Faults in the sun." - sunspots - or power from the sun.... "After 18 years (i.e., 1998) it will hit the earth at 'scattered points'. After this time " a handful of grain for one gold. People will eat leaves. In a given country if 50% of the people are Bhaktas, the country will survive."

Used in Puja: Cardamon and cloves
Text instructs: "Do not use powers - ever! Do not break any laws."

3rd text

"He (Desani) is disciple of Nundi Deva (and) also Patanjali, also Markande (sp). He, Nundi Deva, has five disciples. In all the nine continents there are very few Bhaktas. Desaniman wrote Shastras in all incarnations.

4th Text
Rudra and others speak in this text. Text says to Desani: "do not eat at night. May do Zen, Yoga, with no object. The Atma is like an abode of the Deva. If one speaks against Desani he loses his merits."
Text mentions Auro-Bindo, 83.
Text says: "Death is a great, peaceful being." "A good Bhakta worships with no expectation."

Offerings: Deepa (lights), Dupa (incense)

Spoken aside: "Do not build temple..."

Text says: "Nundi Deva has greatness of Rudra, myself.

Aside: Keep in mind the Yantra is a material form of the Deity: Prevents one from doing wrong things.

Text says: "In 1981 1/8th of population has Deva Bhakti."
Text instructs: "Should avoid bad people."

This Shastra was recited 5 - 10,000 hears past.
4th text ends thus: "Shibum, may peace be."

____________________________

Nadi readings Winter and Spring 1979 and 1980

Notes from 5 Nadi Texts G. V. Desani read to us.

Text instructs: "avoid over indulging 5 tastes: sweet, hot, sour, salt, irritants."

Text gives: The meritorious deeds: 1. To worship, to be mindful, meditate on the Lord. 2. To offer light to the Lord, e.g., night light burns always in (his) prayer room. 3. To help elderly person.

Text says: After 1984 (there is) much world trouble. At that time there will be a great meeting of great beings to decide the fate of the world. It will be like the end of the world.

Text says: "Bhaktas should guard against mistakes. The Guru will know, and advancement will be retarded...The power of the Guru accrues to the disciple in time...not necessarily in this life. It is the Bhakta's duty to renounce one article of food...To keep good health use nine grains, wheat, rice.....; meat eaters, including fish, should take extra water. To eat meat is permitted but it causes some trouble to the Bhakta. No greens at night. Greens can be taken four days a week; Peas two days a week. The nine grains are taken separately, not mixed. Take beans once a week. Take black beans (not available in U.S.) daily for strength. in worship offer fruit then take yourself as blessing."

Text says: If you want something, offer it. We should avoid cruel, wicked people.

Text says: In March, 1980 the force that was at the base of his (Desani's) spine will rise to the top of his head.

Text says: First there are two things (Personal note: Aristotle also concluded this): The Lord and the Prime Substance: Purusha and Prakriti. For the Lord, give up worldly pursuits. One should gather Puja things. We can follow any profession, just follow path of daily worship. Avoid politics.

Desani needs piece of lead and brass.

There are one or two cruel people - he rejects them.

Text says: "To each according to the quality of his worship." during Kali Kali (?Kali Yuga?) only one in one thousand will have love of the Lord." "From 1984 those who seek sexual gratification will suffer greatly." "There are many demons born as men now, they are the thieves, etc."

Text predicts: Acid rain, bad air, and so forth. Says some countries will be ruined by this. 1984 - 1989 (I'm not sure I took this down correctly) After 89 things will change again (maybe for) the better, somewhat.

Another text now - 6 in all today - I said 5 above (?) over a period of months.

It seems that Desani read to us for five hours straight.

Saturn periods come to everyone. (Note: Use intelligence during these Saturn periods to avoid injury, accidental death.

Another Text on future 10 years.

5085 = 1984: From then there will be bad troubles. Prices will increase, everything will be new, new level of evolution, times will see increase of knowledge in people of the world. Good grows with the bad. This text says to get Guru Bhakti, the five senses should be pure, (one should) speak truly, be moderate to get (have) the grace of the guru, to get divine strength.

"To each his own Karma. Thus we grow strong."

Saturn transit - November, 1978.

This text says to: "Treat the great light as the Lord. But he will appear in other forms too. Worship the feet of the Lord; that is, do not aspire for highness. When approached by the Lord, should he appear, get up! One should gesture supplication - hands together. Offer anything you are fond of."

"If you chant 108 times a day, that is good (enough)."

Aside: Mr. Pele (in India) types these texts. He is virtually blind. Mr. Murthi (also in India) translates. In a former life they helped Desani build shelters for pilgrims.

His text says: "To the Yogi, the benevolent look of the Lord is wealth, not gold, land, etc."

"It is natural to have some enemies. Leave it to the Lord. Some enemies are from former lives." (as are family members, wife, children, etc."

"Even bad people have some goodness in them," says the Lord benevolently.

"Each person who comes to Desani did so in former lives." Pele and Mr. Murthi helped (him) build shelters and asked to have their current role in this scheme (as typist and translator).

"The Deva says bad acts are his responsibility too, because they are 'in him'. Desani says, "this is very great of him."

"Desani talks only for a reason, not for gossip or 'passing time'. "

"Incline to the Lord and power comes. Never desire power or show it off for any reason."

"The Devil is a great fool; he can be fooled if you are clever."

"If there is less suffering in a country it is because of the people's intelligence, which follows from good deeds."

"He will give silver square to persons he owes debts to, people who helped him in former lives. This article stays in the 'Cottage of the Lord' for six months while he puts spirit in it. It is a Chakra. He should collect expenses for them. This Chakra will get them (the Bhaktas) divine wealth. Moreover, with the power of the Chakra the Bhakta will have a good life more or less free of the suffering of most people in these bad times."

"From the base of his spine the divine nerve has gone to the eye; it is time for it to go to the lotus at the top of the head."

"The rising of the moon is like the rising of the Kundalini. For Desani, in March, the rising of the Kundalini will be full."

Aside: "Confucius said death is a blessing as are all Universals."

"Desani will think that whatever comes to him is enough."

Pele and Murthi lived with him, helped him to construct shelters in a former life.

Aside: Desani says if you constantly give in to your appetites you merely serve the five elements.

"This is his fifth life. When he goes it will be like a Yogi leaving his Samadhi. His Prana goes to a tree in the Himalayas where Nundi Deva meditates. This being then rises and goes to a mountain....."

Desani says his guru told him to have a willed death.

"The body is our property, not us. It is to be controlled."

"Only because of the merit of Bhaktas, the Universe is not destroyed."

"The great beings will assume illusionary forms for a talk about the World's fate."

"A short person with six letters in his name will write against him in 1982, then come to him asking pardon."

"The Atma (Christian Conscience) will tell us it is not good to deceive. If we ignore it there will be untimely death. The voice of conscience causes guilt, which causes death."

guilt = death

This age is called Kaliyuga. Kali = iron "In 30 and in 100 years people (will be) are smarter, live longer. There will be much sensual gratification, but also Dhyana is being done.

The eighth dance of the Lord. Dance - Tattva

"At time of death the Prana leaves through one of nine doors (orifices). Then the Prana goes to Yama Puri (City of the Dead) to await rebirth. Full Yogis go to Parma Purusha (indestructible). His Prana can hence assume a living form at will."

-end of text-

New Text

"Some of Desani's disciples will publish Shastras too."

Text refers to following text.

-end of text'

New Text

I think this Shastra is the Devi speaking to the Lord of Wisdom. She is the Divine Mother. He has Elephant head.

Aside: "The Devi is different from the Lord, and eternal too."

To Desani: "Cut salt by half or three quarters."

Devi repeats that mentioned in first Shastra, "nine grains correspond to nine planets."

Aside: About 5000 years past only seven planets (circled the Sun). One split in two. Desani lived then too.

"Cut back on salt. Take fruits with grain if possible."

"Sickness follows if formal practice is not completed. If practice is begun (108) it must be completed. Offer fruit then have as a blessing."

"Desani is now 71. When he is 82 a person (name like a poison) will come to him. For no reason, in a former life, this person was an enemy. Desani is instructed to be friendly to him (by this Shastra)."

"Do not speak of siddhis. People will not understand; They will be confused, angry, etc."

"If offerings aren't available, do it mentally.... 'I make a flower of my life (or breath) and offer it to you' ".

End of Shastra

New Shastra

"A few more texts (are) to come."

Aside: Desani equates death and solitude. I think he said death and the Prana's being in Yama Puri is solitude. He said that (Milton or Blake ?) had what appeared to be a holy radiant being appear to him once when he was trying to conjure the Fiend. 'Go Away! It's not you I want,' he said. But lo!!! It WAS the Fiend."

End of this text

End of today's reading from the Nadi Shastras

________________________________

This text I didn't date

"In the beginning all people were Devas. Then they fell to lower Worlds."

"Desani's five lives were all in the Kaliyuga."

Aside: "Why is it (the World process) happening? It is a divine secret, a secret of the Lord. This creation is more man's than the Lord's, so to speak."

"It is very difficult to see the Lord these days. It is the times."

"1992 -1993 - fire hits planet."

"During a period when we suffer blows we are in a Saturn period and the Karma of past lives works itself. He warns to be very careful not to do additional wrongs. He says to do additional Bhakti then."

"He will not know who the bad people are who come to him."

"One should control one's mind. Live in the law. Do not show off divine wealth."

"There are Bhaktas who indulge (strong) desires, who have weak minds, who will, in their next lives have the same attachments."

"In that passage he calls them great Bhaktas, that is, with attainments."

Karma - inordinate desire
Lobha -greed
Krobgh - anger
Moha - (self love) attachment
Ahankara - pride

"There are four periods. The best are the longest. Together they are known as a great period. After (illegible word) have run there is total destruction."

"Desani was born in a 'special way' in each period."

Bhakti - act

"He reads texts because they help us."

Chakra - anything round.

end of this Shastra

__________________________________

Nadi reading June 21, 1980

Three texts today

Palas - effects

second text: "All conjectures by man about creation are false."

"After 1984 people over fifty (will have) eye problems. This and pain causes lack of sleep."

"Before going to sleep do worship of the Deva. Bow down to the Deva."

"To avoid bad effects during these years (one should) control Panca Bhutas (5 elements)."

"To use siddhis (powers) one must abandon compassion." Desani says it is better to live simply, not to abandon compassion.

sixth sense - mind

"The mind and the five elements control his (Desani's) appearance in illusionary form before Bhaktas. He does this by intention, and the appearance lasts for several seconds. He gives some words then goes."

"When we do wrong the soul/self will be troubled. This is conscience. Blows come to the body. That is, debts of Karma are paid by physical pain."

"If anyone says one scripture is right over the other, his mind will be affected."

"The 'third eye' opens at the Lord's pleasure."

"The four Vedas are held in a fist (silence)." *

"The Deva sits in the place of the Puja."

"One should have fear/awe in that presence."

"To deal with evil people or beings is a sin."

"Taking liquor and meat causes sickness. Those who do this cannot become good Bhaktas."

"After 1984 Desani will be like a 'new Yogi' in the world. He will be shown awe by all who meet him. He will be famous the world over. He has more Nadi texts than any other Yogi.

end of these 3 Shastras.

_______________________________

Nadi reading August 9, 1980

Recited by, or to (?) patron saint of Southern India.

21 years from now half of world's population will have love of God.
Half of world's population will be destroyed by then too.

One of the texts read today says he will make a sanctuary (for himself). Personal note by your writer: Myself, and Josh Farley, and Lynn Hough, and Allan Smith did subsequently add on a little room in the back of Blossom Burn's apartment into which he moved and for a period of some months followed a vow of total silence. During this time when I saw him he would 'speak' to me in sign language.

___________________________________

Nadi reading around August, 1982

Three texts read this day.

This year Saturn is in 8th house - no one can fight it. Mentions "spark from the sun" - destruction.

2nd text from Five Faced Lord: It is divine knowledge of God that grants us happiness.

Don't see or know a difference between dukha (difficulty or pain) and sukha (ease).

He says our purposes are wrong... (meaning the purposes of modern man)

Doctrines are not different (meaning doctrine of Shankarachariya (sp) and his detractors, I think)

Postures for exercises, he says, shouldn't be done by older people.

3rd text: Narada. In every period there are seven sages. Rule for Bhakti, 18 steps among which are to listen with pleasure, satisfaction, to words about things divine. To see temples. To recite mantras. To have images. To avoid over eating. Not to be in search of money. Not to be egotistical. To go the forest, solitude: this is the way ??? from world attachments. To conquer death (former merits are needed) then you're not affected by dissolution of Universe.

There are several kinds of Yoga.

Should not change mind.

Highest Yoga is to become one with supreme Lord. Then comes powers.

To BE the creator, destroyer, sustainer.

The people of the Kaliyuga can't understand the Upanishads. Desani said he's been 'yelling' this. Then the Nadi writer says, "some will understand when explained by the proper people."

Ages of man
four Ashrams - rooms?

6-25 learns all through Yoga/learns how at 6 years ???
25-50 householder
50-75 seeks solitude, goes into forest
75- attains sunyasi

They, the Nadi writers (in this) text, are having court, Sabha, assembly. One says, "will not the wealth of the divine knowledge be diminished by the telling of it?" "No, rather it will be increased," comes the answer.

One said Yogis could stop the coming disaster. He also said the people could stop it (since) it stems from "bad thoughts".

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Nadi reading April 18, 1981

The real powers of these Lords (the 3 forms - we have made the form!)

The Mantra's sound spreads through (to every) particle in the (one's) body. This is how the Punja Bhutas are controlled, for Sadhus.

Worship sitting - face North
Eating - face South
Don't face West - mind won't rest.

For Bhaktas. Assume particular posture. Plank, yellow cloth, maybe a chair. These procedures key the mind into religious mode.

Says to rise before dawn, do chores, then worship at dawn.

Manus - Lords

Before 1994 or 1998 (?) a great light falls on the people. This will shatter and go all over. Some call it a planet, meteor.

It is Lord's will. Good Bhaktas stay away from the (subject). Some will be saved.

Desani gets permission of the Lord to pass away. After death he still gives words, moves about in the world; he still helps people.

Recite/say Mantras to conquer demons in us.

Propunga - net

Many Manus, good people - are born now to help in these bad times.

"The Lord's grace is all. Mantra is all."

Light of the sun
If Bhakti increases destruction from light of the sun decreases. (I think he means on a planetary scale.)

What do we do?

Aside: "We weigh, we don't sell, buy. We weigh!"

* I'm reminded of Soren Kierkegaard who wrote that God stands before us with arms outstretched, hands closed. In one hand he offers the ultimate secrets to the Universe. In the other he holds the eternal searching for those. We should choose the eternal seeking and let God keep the greatest Truths, Wisdom, for himself. So says Kierkegaard.

De Caelo

It is therefore evident that there is also no place or void or time outside the heaven. For in every place body can be present; and void is said to be that in which the presence of body, though not actual, is possible; and time is the number of movement. But in the absence of natural body there is no movement, and outside the heaven, as we have shown, body neither exists nor can come to exist. It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which lie beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire duration unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most selfsufficient of lives. As a matter of fact, this word 'duration' possessed a divine significance for the ancients, for the fulfilment which includes the period of life of any creature, outside of which no natural development can fall, has been called its duration. On the same principle the fulfilment of the whole heaven, the fulfilment which includes all time and infinity, is 'duration'-a name based upon the fact that it is always-duration immortal and divine. From it derive the being and life which other things, some more or less articulately but others feebly, enjoy. So, too, in its discussions concerning the divine, popular philosophy often propounds the view that whatever is divine, whatever is primary and supreme, is necessarily unchangeable. This fact confirms what we have said. For there is nothing else stronger than it to move it-since that would mean more divine-and it has no defect and lacks none of its proper excellences. Its unceasing movement, then, is also reasonable, since everything ceases to move when it comes to its proper place, but the body whose path is the circle has one and the same place for starting-point and goal.

Aristotle, On The Heavens, Book I, Chapter 9

"...one and the same place for starting-point and goal." That's where we left off last time. "Arrive where you began and know the place for the first time." What jumps out at me in this summary of his thoughts on The Heavens at this point in the work; he goes on for three more books, is what I see as resonance with other religious and philosophical thought. To me it reads like the Bible, for instance, and also like the Bhagavad Gita. Saul, as Paul the apostle, traveled to Athens and stood on the ground that centuries before saw Plato, Socrates, Aristotle holding forth. Aristotle speaks above of the ancients while he himself walked the earth 300 years before Christ. Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles, among other philosophers referenced by Aristotle, lived as long ago as 500 B.C. Systematic philosophic systems of which the world's great religions have been the benefactor were developed very early. Though the Bhagavad Gita itself is relatively recent, maybe 300 B.C., the Mahabarata, of which it is a part, maybe an addendum, goes back over 3000 years B.C.; it cites astronomical events that date it at that time. Some think Christ preceded Paul in visiting Greece and that he traveled as far as India during the so-called lost years of Christ. The bible, as I understand, has nothing on 18 years of his life, from age twelve till he began his ministry about age 30. I rather imagine he did somehow seek out and make his own the wisdom of the ages. We should all follow his example.

Keeping things in true perspective remember that For Aristotle the Heavens consisted of the fixed stars which he thought as a whole circled the earth and was ungenerated, indestructible. Circular movement was thought of as characterizing the fifth element beyond earth, air, water, fire. It had no contrary, a contrary being necessary for decay. The earth was the center of the universe. All unconstrained movement below the orbit of the moon was either towards or away from the center, i.e., no circular movement was possible below the moon, the earth was not in heaven, but at rest, below. He also said the heavier an object the faster it fell. This cosmogony became part of the orthodoxy of the Christian church of Rome to be challenged at the risk of imprisonment or death. It was another great mind, Galeleo, born in 1564, who famously challenged this after having observed through his primitive telescope the orbiting moons of Jupiter. Until the so called Copernican revolution, however, this orthodoxy persisted. It's worth noting the neo-platonist, Plotinus, born 205 A.D., put it that the center of the universe was everywhere, the circumference nowhere, a poetic way of stating, I think, that this is outside the purview of mere human knowledge.

Aristotle thought the earth rather small because, he noted, one could travel the short distance to Egypt and the fixed stars would change. Some not seen in Greece would be seen in Egypt, or would be seen to set and rise whereas they didn't at the higher lattitude. He also concluded the earth was a sphere based mainly on the observation of the curve of the limb of the planet seen in eclipses of the moon. And he is credited with having been the first to record the predictions (of unnamed) mathemeticians of the size of the earth which he placed at 400,000 stadia, about 46,250 miles. Later, using the fact that the sun shone directly to the bottom of a well in Aswan (old Syene), and cast a shadow of a certain length in Alexandria on the same day, the summer solstice, Eratosthenes, born 276 B.C., calculated the circumference of the earth to be 25,000 miles.

A perfect, eternal, heaven above naturally becomes the Christian destination for saved souls. The corrupt earth is split off and shunned. This obvious false dichotomy of the good above, evil below, is the root and stem of a profound western malaise. Like the spires of our great cathedrals yearning, longing for the heavens, we seek completion in a realm beyond being reached. We split the Real in two yet maintain dogmatically the oneness of God. This is our schizophrenia and is at the heart of our self loathing and is an expression of the smug certainty of ignorance by the minds that followed Aristotle, encoded his 'scientific' thoughts into a code of conduct to be imposed on all mankind. To this day it still dominates the lives of most people on the planet whether they actively believe or not. And, this is all the more sad because the esoteric teachings of the ancients across the world tend to agree and for those who truly seek, the Christ also gave us real truth, his life being the story of God descending into matter in order to reemerge a self realized spiritual being.

Here is something to contrast with this. Sean Carroll, Theoretical Physicist, Caltech. Transcript here. H/T, American Digest. Video:

At about 17 minutes he says different versions of the universe are really like different phases of matter, speaking of the multiverse theory.

So. "God" plants a field and gets, along with a successful crop, some mutants too. Not every instantiation yields what I imagine is the goal, sentient life of the apotheosis kind. Some versions of the universe might not yield life at all. Interesting to note that the ancients in India held that the universe is created again and again without end.

Next up, Aristotle's On Generation and Corruption and after that, on The Soul.

Interlude for TEOTWAWKI

"The end of the world as we know it" is a myth chased by people who need something to believe in; a desire for something greater than their little selves.  There has always been a great hunger for apocalypse.  Eschatology is the most popular 'science' and religions are it's greatest beneficiaries. For instance, the 2nd coming of Christ, the eternal waiting for the Mesiah, the imminent emergence of the 12th Imman. One comes from above, the last from the bowels of the Earth, and the middle we haven't yet seen. That is the way of Christians, Jews, Muslims. In the East, he is sent forth again and again as needed, when there is a waning of love of God which is the view most correct, I think.

Principle: Self loathing is at the root of fascination with apocalyptic dreams. Essentially it is the yearning for self destruction.

This goes all the way back to the so called 'original sin' which in a way can be thought of as the first lesson in self loathing. Compare Soren Kierkegaard's "Concept of Dread". What is dread without the "r"? The search or desire for salvation is also a function of need for self annihilation. Kill the little self to realise God. This makes for a life of passion. It perverts the true meaning and purpose of existence by arresting development at the level of the sensuous, as in Don Juanism, and in reality is the mode of living of the daemonic in nature. It is antithetical to true faith and to reason. The existential daemonic mode of being is infinite desire or longing where being whole or complete resides infinitely in the next sensuous moment always and ever on the horizon as a goal but never reached. True faith is the opposite state of Being, always and ever complete. One needn't dread not being saved or dead to the Real because of the unworthiness that infinitely precipitates self loathing. Salvation is, once accepted, notice I don't say achieved, a state that should be seen as an end that when we arrive we see as the beginning, seen for the first time. We arrive at where we started and recognise it for the first time. That, of course, is T.S. Eliot. Salvation can't be achieved. It can only be accepted. We should focus on this promise of the divine: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world."

Walking Through Aristotle

I'm through with Physics and into On The Heavens. In Physics he concludes there is no actual (separate) infinite; infinity is bound up in potentiality. The first principles [of Reality] are contraries and are at least two in number but no more than three. There is the first movent, itself unmovable, having no parts nor magnitude, bound with the moved, and eternal. Only circular locomotion is infinite. Nothing rests in a moment and nothing is moved in a moment either as a moment is indivisible. This follows because whatever moves is divisible. Only the sensible can be altered.

This is no true summary of the Physics but that is not my purpose. First, I'm not really capable of such a task. My personal journey through these thoughts is just that. Personal. I seek touchstones, places that resonate with my thought, faith, understanding. It is a rich field and there is more than I could ever write down.

Powers of nature, principles, manifest when the right conditions arise. Darkness calls (contrary) light out of itself. Light is a potency of the dark. This is the Greek idea of Logos and is also rendered "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.” Logos refers to fundamental powers, principles, that have the ability to manifest themselves. The "light" in question is not mere self propagating magnetic fields, "physical" light. This is light as Idea and includes moral light, the light of truth, of understanding, of justice, and beauty. Perhaps all the concomitants of consciousness are a form of "light", powers of nature on a par with gravity. Doesn't Liberty shine forth an attractive force? Aren't we drawn to liberty as well as faith? We want to believe because we want to align with basic principles of nature, as if we had a choice. We want to reside in the Logos. I wrote elsewhere that the entelechy of potentiality is actuality. Truth is an eternal potency and eternally actualizing itself. The other concomitants are the same. "We", sentient life forms, created being(s), are the agency of this apotheosis and our "spirits" are in eternal motion, orbit, around the Divine Creative Spirit. Similarly, gravity holds planets in orbit around their stars.

Even our breathing follows the law of contraries. Nothing is closer to us than our breath. The law of contraries coupled with the law of potentialities means things familiar, such as the bilateral symmetry of biological organisms. The ramification of this is that any organism on any planet anywhere would likely be surprisingly familiar.* But also, this law would tend to mean, for instance, that whatever abominable monstrous evil one might imagine will eventuate somewhere, sometime. On the contrary, benevolent goodness and beauty beyond the ken of man will also come to be; beauty so terrible in its greatness that it is withheld from us because to look on it with mortal eyes would be to die.

That is Aristotle, my personal take thus far.

Finally, for today, in On the Heavens he begins by remarking on the trinitarian theme prevalent in nature. To have being in every respect is, he says, to be a body, not a line, not a plane, and it is only triads that we can refer to as all, not one, not both, but all. Referring to the Pythagoreans he notes that "the world and all in it is determined by the number three, since beginning and middle and end give the number of an 'all', and the number they give is the triad. And so, having taken these three from nature as (so to speak) laws of it, we make further use of the number three in the worship of the Gods." Protagoras was speaking of the Holy Trinity 500 years before Christ. Touchstone.

*Preserved here: "We know that mathematics are consistent throughout the Universe, and that physics is based on math and is also consistent throughout the Universe. We also know that the chemistry, which is based on physics and math is also consistent throughout the Universe. Since the math and the physics and the chemistry are consistent, it seems logical to assume that the biology of the Universe - which is based on the math, physics and chemistry - is also consistent. For example, consistent optics, derived from the physical principles of light interacting with gases and liquids, would lead to similar eyes. Consistent atmospheres with the same gases would lead to similar lungs and gills. The symmetry (left/right) of most physiques optimizes balance and control within a gravitational field, so physical laws point to similar physiological constructs. I think when we do finally encounter other life we (well, not me, you) will be startled at how similar to our own it is. Mother nature is consistent and her laws lead to the same outcome everywhere when applied locally, so it seems logically consistent that biological life will follow suit globally. Except, of course, that the people on all those other planets will all have strange foreheads. " (See Jim's comment at 9:59 a.m. at the jump)