(Philosophea: Solutions) Chapter 1. The Great Dialectic

GRANTING we know nothing of the world, and everything which can be known is before us, i.e., philosophy, physics, science, religion, history, &c., what can we say for the great works of mankind to attempt an explanation of her nature, and his reality? To be terse, we should say nothing, for silence shines with brilliance; we should feel awestruck and humble because before us stretches the lineage of human endeavor; yet still everything that our species has thought or invented represents a mere child with respect to the cosmic scale of civilizations and our overall potential.
If we are to treat reality with a critical, alive eye, we must assume that all and nothing is as of yet known; that we are a baby and a sage simultaneously; we must view the world with all three eyes: the eye of flesh (empiricism), the eye of mind (reason), and the eye of spirit (contemplation\ receptivity). In other words, we must become our own philosopher or at the very least critical thinking. [To help in the process of becoming one's own philosopher, the author describes an autodidactic five-step process, which we will call the Pentivium, pg. 132. If you feel a need to stop here and prepare yourself for reading further, please do so. Also, if the reader is unfamiliar with the above mentioned subjects and unfamiliar with the main and tertiary figures of western and eastern thought, suggested readings will be provided in the Notes section of this book.] [1]
Now that we are on the same page, we can begin attempting to describe reality in whatever limited terms as can be understood by anyone. To begin, we will describe the hermetic principle of polarity—that everything has its thesis and antithesis (hot vs. cold)—as well as the dialectic of Hegel, wherein we will attempt a synthesis, or compromise between the two apparently conflicting sides of the same coin; something and nothing merge together to form reality, hot and cold merge into mild. What we are searching for, in other words, is the golden mean, as Plato called it, which forces us to constantly question and evolve our ideas about everything.
The metaphor of this dialectic is much like light interacting with a crystal prism—just as light pours through it to create a beautiful spectrum—so too the great diversity is a manifestation of interacting phenomena of seemingly opposing natures: in knowing light we know dark, in knowing the combination we know reality. However, the truth of polarity is that poles are merely an expression of degrees, deriving from a single force: hot and cold, heavy and weightless; though different, these opposites share a common thread, energy and density respectively.
Being so derived, every aspect of nature is a reflection of that absolute relationship of polarities; therefore: masculine and feminine, hot and cold, up and down, hard and soft. Every aspect of reality has its opposite, but these are merely degrees of the same thing, and only by union and balance are they complete and appropriate. To bring these apparent opposites into harmony we need another hermetic principle: rhythm. To know silence without sound is impossible, and it is music which brings the two together in harmony. There may have been a time or condition without up or down, silence or sound, but it may as well not have existed because we cannot relate to it, even in our dreams. Therefore, if we are to rectify the mistakes of the past it must be our individual and collective dream to rectify every existing imbalance, and create a paradise on earth through harmony. Even if such perfection is impossible, the point is not to achieve perfection, but the journey and the quest for perfection, for it is not the destination but the journey which bears the most significance.
Back to our metaphor. If matter is the prism, and consciousness is the light, reality is composed of the same spectrum of ever-increasing diversity and complexity as that of color, and this is no coincidence. Literally everything bares the mark of this relationship: light comes as both a particle and a wave, even the prism is composed of mostly empty space—and what is not empty space is either energy or information in a primordial sense, i.e., data, or chaotic patterns and processes that can reproduce themselves (information at its most fundamental level is any propagation of cause and effect in any system). Therefore, even the things we think are one way, are really both ways, but in ways we do not fully understand through the eye of empiricism.
Nonetheless, we can say that that which is most good is that which is most related to the synthesis between something and nothing, chaos and order; and that which is most beautiful could be said to be that which is most in balance with those related contrasts; truth, then, stands on its own as the act and display of that relationship as an existential reality. For instance, a law is good when its weight or legitimacy is agreeable to those affected and clear in so far as its language and intent (weight or legitimacy being a matter of cultural bias, and clarity of intent being a subject of interpretation and, therefore, subjectivity or consciousness); a painting may only be beautiful when its color and forms are appealing, but more importantly when the two (object and subject) interact in such a way as to astound the observer (the paint and forms being matter, the orchestration of those forms being of the mind, and the experience of the profound beauty is a function of consciousness); a philosophy may only be true when it considers both the masculine and feminine, the objective and subjective, science and spirituality, and does so in such a way that the two apparent opposites are seen as complementary and non-dual; in effect the reader or student becomes enlightened in the process (the written or spoken word acting as the matter, the subjective interpretation of the reader then acts as the function of consciousness). In writing this book, truth is being imparted as a matter of fact. Which is to say, no one will deny that the current author took it upon himself to act on the impetus to write this book; therefore, this book is true in so far as it exists, but it only truly exists to the extent that it is being read by an observer at any given time (however true it is in respect to its content is up to the reader and future generations to decide).
To be a human being in disharmony means to discard the body for the mind, or the mind for the body, but either way, an obvious problem arises in the health of either the mind or body, or both the mind and body when this disharmony occurs, not to mention the deeper levels of our being: soul and spirit. More importantly, when an entire species plunges headlong into disharmony, the results can be catastrophic. For this reason, we will be exploring the nature of this disharmony at length in this book, as well as ways to bring about synthesis and restore harmony to the human species and the world with it. Chaos and order must be merged within each of us, as without, to the extent that each of us may be liberated from an authoritarian, socialist oligopoly, as well as any other master vs. slave model.
Humanity will find its salvation in a relationship between love (empathy\sentiment) and reason (epistemology/wisdom), where love is the light of awareness through community and reason is the prism of information and nature. Only by relating to nature can we commune with our deeper self, and only by relating to each other can we discover our deeper purpose. However, by sacrificing the body of nature for a higher intellect and actual community for a virtual one, humanity has ensured its own demise. At the very least our current civilization will plunge into darkness, and any civilization that kills its mother for its toys is not worth saving. Fortunately, humanity will kill itself before any major harm comes to mother earth, but before that happens we would be fools to ignore the signs and equally murderers of humanity if we passively accept this trend.
However, to prove the inner pessimist wrong, a new revolution of relatedness must come, is coming—has come. Reflecting on the self-same truth in us all, and in everything, a deeper dimension of compassion flowers into being. There is only one life, one being many—hence a universe. Therefore, how we treat animals is inevitably how we will treat ourselves. If we are to ascend to the level of gods, we must first grow past an infantile egoism which every great thinker has condemned as a hindrance to happiness and heaven and recognize that all life is one -- to greet all beings as thy self, and recognize the holarchy as a great We, for just as the spectrum casts an apparent diversity from one divine source, so too the face of god wears many masks.
Existence seems to be about finding that perfect balance between light and dark, chaos and order, consistency and form. In the pursuit of something better than nature, humanity has lost its inner innocence: its relatedness to the reality before and beyond itself. To regain that goodness is simple, but not easy: simple because it requires no effort, not easy because our world is so convincingly real (when I say our world, I mean the world of human nature: the artificial nature that has been superimposed over nature by humans, and not the world of Nature; one might say that the two are one, but anyone with a rational, discerning mind can tell the difference between organic and artificial). In essence, to break free from the tiresome game—provided to us by people who want our obedience and nothing more—all we need do is let go and pick up something new: a hoe, a book, the hands and hearts of our fellow beings, and begin providing for our own future. A balance between independence and interdependence is the essence of relatedness, and the inner good of humankind.
As in past ages a more integral, more related organization of the human species must come; a new revolution, but on a global scale—a demand for the end of war and prison by recognizing our own victimhood and simultaneous guilt as victimizers, for education to be absolutely free for everyone by recognizing our collective bondage through ignorance, and the end of poverty by unlimited access to resources and opportunity. We hold these conclusions to be self-evident—not by my particular religion but by a relatedness to reality that all religions proclaim. The goodness of humankind will be kept only once human reality (self) and its underlying natural reality (Self) are recognized and understood.
Heaven and hell exist here and now, this world can be a prison or a paradise, depending upon the choices we make and the perspectives we take. Therefore, a contingent to heaven on earth has always been the universal illumination of the average human being. Though a gradual trend evinces a natural impetus towards just such a mass understanding, the speed with which our technology is growing overshadows that gradual illumination—casting ignorance of the big picture to the four corners of the earth. For a beautiful outcome of the planet to blossom into reality, an active communication of the truth, by the illuminated, must take place. This too is not new, but only today would such notions be defensible and digestible to the masses.
As the human race learns to walk, as an infant species, balance is key. Thus far, humanity has struggled to find that balance, and has squandered its gifts; and as to be expected from a young child, imbalance of the overall outlook of life has taken place. For centuries the ego and selfishness have ruled over the hearts of men, until their hearts have withered, and their capacity for compassion has ceased. In order for the human species to survive and thrive, a union of the head and the heart, science and spirituality, humanity and nature, masculine and feminine must take shape. Only through unity will the contrasting natures result in a brilliant harmony. The more complete and integral the balance, the more good and beautiful the resultant world is bound to be.
In light of this revelation, it must be remembered that for many centuries women were the slaves of the world, and continue to be regarded as sub-human or second class citizens in many parts of the world. With no rights, no authority over themselves, and no equality, women, the sacred feminine of nature and life itself, have been overtaken by the patriarchal, linear logic of male dominance, rather than enlightened male and female coalescence. In fact, men and women have such a hard time communicating that entire fields have grown up around the need for communion (e.g. “women are from venus men are from mars”). Consider for a moment the obvious truth of this; our overwhelming disharmony and fundamental fragmentation of our species into many arbitrary distinctions—senseless boundaries of race, sex, class, and creed. All they do is hinder our cultural and inner evolution. There is only one life, one face underlying the manifestation of all life, but humanity has separated itself from all but itself through ego and selfishness.
The truth, thus far, is that disharmony and discord have been the norm historically, but this is the truth thus far. A deeper truth is that, as a species with the potential for world civilization, this initial dysfunction is relatively normal, but go too long as a child and eventually mother earth will abandon us and simply wait for a new species to take our place. Therefore, breaking down—holding on to these illusory boundaries—or breaking through—letting go of these illusory boundaries—and recognizing the underlying unity of all things is of vital importance to our species' survival.
How then can we bring harmony to the masculine and feminine forces, i.e. to men and women, to government and the people, science with spirituality, &c.? Can sexual intercourse, or a new sexual revolution do the trick? Or must we learn a new outlook entirely from what has been done in the past? Whatever conclusion we come to, it must be a natural path: founded in understanding and unity, and complement rather than competition. By doing so we will be living in the universal truth (rather than an artificial human gestalt), and men and women of the world will rejoice for new clarity and awakening. Otherwise, a planetary culture of schizophrenia will continue, and the potential of human civilization will be stillborn.