Posts: 9542
From: 11/6/78 11:38am Boston, MA
Registered: Aug 2004

posted January 12, 2009 04:53 PM         

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There is no consistency, in individuals, nations, ages, - you name it. In every man, we may discover instincts and ideas as diverse as those exhibited by the most dissimilar cultures on the planet. Read a book and you will not find the man; only a proximal point of convergence, where all that is not the man comes to blows; this conflict is the man. The measure of identity appearing to the casual observor is but a momentary "blip" in the eye of the observor; the fin that, for an instant, breaks the surface; but never the fish. Were she to look with deeper insight, this "identity" would crumble, - or, rather, concresce into manifold characteristics without definition; each giving way to another, and unable to maintain an independent integrity. Everything that achieves (appears to achieve) any degree of particularity divests itself (appears to divest itself) from the totality of Being, in order to exhibit a momentary singularity; a sanctuary, of sorts. And everything must end in a compost of contradicting impulses, drives, and currents, since, being a particularity (appearing to be a particularity), it is, in itself, something of a ruse.

Yet, that which we so-called "spiritually minded" folk are fond of calling "ultimate truth" is no more (or less) real. All things, including that which we call The One Thing, have reality only to the extent that they are subjectively witnessed and experienced; to think that this reality may be objectively considered would be a mistake. The act of reflection is not divested from the thing reflected upon, but, rather, is the continued reverberation of it. So, while we may appear to reflect, it is we who are reflected. That which arises before the mind is like a hammer striking a bell or a stone; the mind is the bell, or stone, reverberating according to the nature of the strike; the reverberations in the mind are our impressions of the thing. Even to reflect upon them is to experience them, for the impressions made on the senses are no more "real", or legitimate, than the impressions awakened in the mind, which is only a more sublte extension of bodily sense. But a mind which has been anchored in the depths of things will not mistake the reverberation, or the thing, for something definite and concrete. Any judgements formed will be nuanced, tentative, and conditional in the extreme. Likewise, sense impressions will acquire an indefiniteness, or a kind of fleeting quality, even as they are received. The mind operates as a witness, without forming absolute judgments, and, even when formulating conceptions, does not take itself too seriously. There is a lightness; even the most reverent emotions and meaningful insights are accompanied by a flexible and irreverent wit. And the action of thinking becomes, as it were, a kind of dancing, with the object being, not to distinguish true from false, but, to dance well. She, the illumined, orchestrates her thoughts as a dance is choreographed, and the question in matters of choreography is never, "Is it true or false?", but, "Is it well or poorly done?"; "Does it evoke, at once, both soul and spirit?"; "Is it beautiful?"; "Is it sublime?" This, then, becomes, in a sense, the new criterion of truth. "Is it sublime?" Moreover, "Does it flow?"; "Can it dance?"

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