Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Transcendence

  • In the World but not Of It.

    In the World but not Of It.

    A while back I found myself disturbed that a blogger could crusade in favor of violence and dissension and against ecumenism.

    I still marvel at such an attitude but my friend Keith Hancock comments:

    Is this essay written for Muggles, a final kick of the bucket before you continue your path into the Silence?

    A muggle is somebody who has not discovered magic. Or in our case, mysticism. Which some of course would deride as magic and hocus pocus.

    My initial reaction was as follows:

    I think I just found the author of that blog ridiculous! The more correct response would have been a) not to bother to read it in the first place and b) not to give a monkey’s

    As Keith knows I am a Seeker. I am never too certain what it is I have found but I do know what I am seeking and day by day I inch forward towards my goal.

    I think Keith is right. I may not “like” that blogger’s attitude. I think I am probably “right” not to agree with his sentiments and I think I am probably “right” to believe that in a better world people would not think in that way. But it was pointless to read the post in the first place and (worse) to become engaged in conversation with the author.

    I was led back to Keith’s comment after watching a film on Samahdi last night.

    A fellow blogger, Nomad of the Universe, posted links to a documentary on Samadhi by Daniel Schmidt and I watched the film with much enjoyment. I had a night of very strange dreams where I ended up in a parallel universe, somewhat upset that I was unable to telephone my dead father.

    Now, in days gone by I would look up everything I could on Daniel Schmidt – was he the real thing? Had he achieved the state he so beautifully portrayed? Or was he living a lie and selling a pup. I did not bother to do that last night. I have little idea who or what Daniel Schmidt is or does and I do not intend to find out. Bar the bare facts that he is a Canadian writer who runs a retreat center and teaches meditation.

    A few years back I read Andrew Harvey’s book on Rumi and was deeply affected by the beauty both of Rumi’s poetry and Harvey’s writing. I then spoilt it by reading about Harvey’s private life and his quarrels with a character called Mother Meera. Harvey had provided me with a beautiful gift and I threw it back in his face.

    And so I did not make the same mistake with Daniel Schmidt. We none of us lead perfect lives but if we seek perfection, if we describe it, if we move step by step towards it then how much better our world becomes. Whatever the ins and outs of the lives of Harvey, Schmidt (or even Rumi) are they not pointing us in the right direction? More than you could say for the fellow who favors violence and discord over ecumenism.

    I loved Schmidt’s portrayal of our pointlessly busy world. The ridiculous anthill we live in. The mad consumer society seeking to satisfy desires which will never be sated.

    I found some of the esotericism a bit rich and I am no believer in the wisdom of the ancients. But the basic message rang very true: to discard the self and merge once again with the divine. Whatever that is.

    In the world but not of it.

    What a lovely thought. Or, as the Zen Buddhists would say:

    “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

  • Messiah – Netflix

    Messiah – Netflix

    Profound and beautiful would be my best shot at describing this wonderful new series Messiah from the creative genius that is Netflix.

    Needless to say I do not give a toss about the general critical reception and care even less for petty debates as to whether the series is blasphemous or takes liberties with the “scriptures” Hebrew, Christian or Muslim.

    I am no believer in gods or saviors of any flavor, but clearly I must have a hankering after the divine to enjoy this fictional portrayal of a supernatural being who declares that history has ended.

    My favorite scene? His meeting with the US President, himself a man of deeply religious conviction, who is moved by the Messiah’s plea to withdraw all US troops from abroad.

    Yes, peace. Call it naive, Utopian, unrealistic but it is some such shattering event for which I have long yearned.

    Peace, love, goodness a dropping of hatred, bigotry and greed. What is not to like about such a philosophy? Is he the son or god or isn’t he? Is he possessed of miraculous powers or a mere charlatan, who has learnt the power of deception and conjury from his wicked uncle? Did he really walk on water in the capital city of Mammon and did he resurrect a bunch of latter day Lazarus’s from the dead?

    Well this is not reality so the answers to those questions have little relevance outside of the curiosity to see what this tale will reveal.

    But is there not a longing in many of us (most perhaps?) to abandon this mundane plane of existence, to upsticks, to thrown down the dull tools of survival and follow some greater calling?

    Would I want some anthropomorphic god dropping down from the skies? Probably not but the idea of a new beginning, a new world, a better society, a dramatically different existence – yes, that is something I would welcome.

    Fiction it may be, but the desire for transcendence and meaning is something for which so many yearn.

    If the Messiah makes us question our lives, our behavior, our beliefs, then all power to its creators.

  • Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

    Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

    Far from disappearing, Keats and his incomparable poetry have lived on after his death.

    How should you approach Keats?  What should you do with his works? How should you interpret them?

    I can only answer for myself; that I find pleasure in taking poetry at face value. I find no need to agonize, to wander in endless circles wondering what he meant by his immortal lines.

    Being neither intellectual nor aesthete, I make of them what I will. I let them do for me what beauty always does –  elevate my mood,  inspire me,  give me a glance of the transcendent, the sublime.

    Take the Ode to Autumn.  Autumn is personified – it conspires with the sun:

    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

    Redness, ripeness, plumpness. The beauty of rural life, of humble cottages.  The sweetness of fruit, a harvest of plenty celebrated in ancient musty churches where children sing simple songs of thanksgiving.

    Even hardened bankers and their dreary clerks, the Marleys, Scrooges and Cratchits, can have their spirits lifted, as the festivals of autumn presage those of Christmas and the revelations that season’s spirits will bring. And on after that in the never ending rhythm of the earth and the sun.

    Of course we must not imagine there ever existed such a place as “Autumn” other than in the mind of poets, but then all reality exists in our minds. Why not let a fable or two dwell there as well?  The unobserved tree living silently in the woods exists, but with no observer who will celebrate its life? Who will appreciate its beauty? Perhaps we give Autumn a validity by observing it. Perhaps the tree living silently in the woods needs us after all.

    Maybe the beauty of that faery tale, the rural idyll, can become our reality.  At the very least, Keats’ words can accentuate, enlarge the natural beauty we see around us in this season of fruition and plenty:

    Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

    Keats conjures up a scene so colorful, so joyful in its gentle melancholy, that spring can wait its turn. Autumn has its deep beauty too.  Autumn is sitting on a granary floor, drowsed with the fumes of poppies. Autumn loads and blesses “with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run”.

    Let’s not fool ourselves – Keats lived in times as brutal as our own. More so. The dark satanic mills so feared by Blake were spreading like evil, black mold. Conditions in the factories were bleak and child labor produced goods which many (most) could not afford His own life was a tragic one, cut short by disease.  His family were taken from him before their time.  He could never marry – his love for Fanny remained unrequited, he could not afford matrimony.

    But we must take beauty where and when we can.  We must believe that times can and will improve in the millennia to come.  While waiting, the words of Keats can only improve our experience in what we think of as our “reality”.

  • Has Iain M. Banks Sublimed?

    Has Iain M. Banks Sublimed?

    Subliming according to Wikipedia is a process that allows a civilization to transfer the consciousness of its individual members (biological and/or artificial) from the material universe that we experience to another plane of existence.

    The bald facts are that Iain Banks was a Scottish socialist and atheist and (in my opinion at least) one of the finest writers and thinkers of our age.  Would he be horrified to see his concept of “sublimation” extended to the almost universal desire throughout human history for the divine? Yes, I think he probably would but he must have been aware of the parallels.  I can do no better than observe: “the sublimed species seem to utilise immense power over the material universe, to the point where sublimed species can be thought of as close to godlike”.

    The Culture is undoubtedly a Utopia but a far from dystopian one. It is a universe where beneficent “Minds” embodied in vast travelling spaceships can and do almost everything. They are undoubtedly godlike.  They look after the universe and try to improve the lot of those they encounter. They are good. They are wise. They are bold and well nigh invincible.  They are everything we ourselves would like to aspire to.

    And in this age of almost overwhelming technological optimism we may hope to become “Minds” ourselves in the (supposedly) coming singularity.

    Yet beyond the Minds there was another universe, another plane – a non physical one. The Minds were still bound to metal; in Descartian terms they were minds but also bodies. Do some of us still think in these terms? Do some still believe that we are more than the sum of our parts and can thus aspire to a post physical world?

    I hope so.