Forest Poetry

In a sense, to say that something is true is redundant. The words “is” and “true” essentially signify the same thing. Thus when we say that God is truth, we understand that we are predicating of God absolute being. We leave aside for the present the final, or, perhaps more properly, primary distinction between God as pure being and God as completely transcendent and not receptive of any predication. Our current subject of discussion is not the absolute transcendence of God but God’s relation with creation. That God is truth and that this truth is one, not many, follows logically; for as truth, God is the objective measure by which all other things are measured. There cannot be two separate objective measures of truth; for if these two measures agreed on every occasion, then they would be not two but one, and if they disagreed, then at most one of the measures could accurately be said to be such a measure. A statement that claims that an individual creature has a given quality is true only insofar as it reflects the existence (i.e., the being) of that quality in that creature. This existence (being) is derived from God. Thus the existence of all qualities are granted by God, and it is true that a creature has a quality only if God has granted existence to that quality in that particular. On a fundamental level, even a mundane assertion is true if and only if God has granted it existence.

Keeping this in mind, we move on to the perhaps controversial statement that all men believe in God. That is, all men believe in objective truth, even those who refuse to admit it to themselves. Men of course vary in the accuracy of their belief. We can give a graded list of these different types of belief. The list is in no way exhaustive and merely represents a few examples. We begin with those who have the most perfect belief possible for men, belief that God is one, good, and transcendent. This is the traditional view. Next we have what we may call the scientific view. Many of the proponents of this view vigorously deny God, but yet they do not explain what the one measure of objective truth is. Sensing this problem they claim that they are merely attempting to approximate reality, but this just pushes the problem back. There is still one objective thing (truth) at which they are aiming. If they are aiming at truth, then truth must have existence, or else they might as well be aiming at nothing. This brings us to the root of the problem: there can be no ontological distinctions without metaphysics. Try as they might to denounce metaphysics, it always lurks in their psyche whenever thy make an assertion in speech or thought. That is why we say that they believe in God, only in a very distorted and degenerate form. Even lower than the scientific view is the extreme pseudo-dialectical view of the Marxists.

We say pseudo-dialectical because what the Marxists regard as dialectic is in fact an inversion of the dialectic of the ancient philosophers. For the latter dialectic was a means of removing contingent truths from the psyche as a means of reaching the one unqualified principle of all things (God). For the Marxists dialectic is an insane process of constant and radical revision of theories, a removing of current beliefs but not to achieve transcendence, only further and constant removal of ideas. There is a desire for constant flux and movement, never resting on one theory. For example, there are Marxists today who reject modern science, despite the fact that the their world view was partly based on it. They do this because they claim that modern science developed in a chauvinist, feminist, oppressive culture, and is therefore suspect. By so doing they undermine the very basis of their philosophy, but this does not bother them, for they care not for foundation, only revolution. How can we say that such men believe in God? Because in their frenzy of theorizing and revision, even they wish to assert the truth of a particular theory. Their understanding of truth is so poor that they can claim that a theory is true for now, subsequently abandoning it. But nevertheless, in promoting a theory they are implicitly making a claim about its existence, about it having a relationship to what really is in the world, to the truth. Of course their claims must be taken for the nonsense that they are, for they have no solid ground to stand on.

Only a consciously and proudly metaphysical system can legitimately make claims about truth.

“The ruler of the South Sea was called Light; the ruler of the North Sea, Darkness; and the ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Primal Chaos. From time to time, Light and Darkness met one another in the kingdom of Primal Chaos, who made them welcome. Light and Darkness wanted to repay his kindness and said, “All humans have seven openings with which they see, hear, eat and breathe, but Primal Chaos has none. Let us try to give him some.” So every day they bored one hole. On the seventh day, Primal Chaos died.”

-Chuang Tsu

What is our understanding of Chaos? Certainly, for the modern mind, chaos is there to be avoided, in the search of an order which grants humankind a controlled distribution of all economic and cultural affairs.  This order has not the properties of equilibrium that we would expect from the divine harmony, but it is a pursuit which seeks to avoid risks and sufferings, through the implementation of rationally planned strategies. Therefore, chaos is understood as the opposition of human made order, and being obscure, in opposition to the light of reason.

Human is just a form that the Heaven gives, not an ultimate object which as to be understood as a peak of the universe. But in a humanist mindset, human is the highest being, as the world must be transformed according to his humanly made values. What’s beyond his own humanity, must be ordered, this is to say, that uncertainty must be eliminated, and passions rationalized. In this regard, a Nietzschean perspective of the “enlightened” man who is afraid to give a gaze to the abyss comes to mind, as one man who fears nature in himself, and the unfathomable strength of nature to move us.

From a postmodern perspective, denier of structures, chaos is a state of uncertainty that sinks man into his material conditions. Chaos is horror and fear and a shameful sinking in apathy and despair. This vision of Chaos, has not the insightful properties of the Taoist vision, but it makes chaos a justification of solipsism and individualism, in the universal validity of moral perversion. Chaos is misunderstood as random idiocy in art, chaos becomes fatalism in daily life, a fail that it is pushed to others in the pretext of the purposelessness of the universe. Chaos is not wishful order, but it becomes wishful disorder of how man must desist and fail on all transcendental and organic purpose.

This way, the only accurate understanding of Chaos is through reverence. Our reverence comes from the recognition of our limits as species and as agents, we revere nature because nature is more powerful than us, but, it sustains us and fills us with wonder to keep living… Chaos, wild yet divine, inspires us to higher ends, beyond our senses.

“Modernity is hubris; decadence is its Nemesis.”

-Mark Anderson

With his book “Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One” philosophy professor Mark Anderson gives a concise and powerful diagnosis of the problem of modernity and points towards a possible remedy within the framework of Platonic philosophy.  In just over 100 pages he moves from identifying the symptoms of modernity in current American culture to offering insightful guidance for those who wish to purify themselves of the degenerate elements that have surrounded them since birth.  By referencing only sparingly the eastern traditions that occupy the attention  of many traditionalists, Prof Anderson explores the decline from tradition to modernity in a purely western context.

For the purposes of his book Plato represents tradition and Nietzsche represents the modern.  The choice of Nietzsche as a representative of decadent modernity is a significant, perhaps even defining feature of the book.  The style of writing is clearly modeled more on Nietzsche than Plato, including aphorisms and word play that mimic the German philosopher (a good example of this is the quote given at the beginning of this review).  One of the book’s chapters is entitled “Nietzschean Reflections Contra Nietzsche,” and that description could very well characterize the entire book.  This focus is a result of Nietzsche at once being an extreme example of the disease of modernity and being painfully almost right on so many important questions.  Because of the latter quality Nietzsche often ensnares moderns who are beginning to awaken to the horrors of the current situation, leading them away from truly revolutionary thought with an intoxicating prose style (one which, with all due respect, Prof Anderson does not match) and impassioned, biting insights.  Given the amount of work that Prof Anderson has done on Nietzsche, one wonders if he initially followed this same path himself.

The author identifies as the root of Nietzsche’s error, and the root of modernity, the problem of misology.  He carefully emphasizes the fact that although misology is closely linked with modernity, misology, and indeed modernity itself, were present in antiquity.  Plato recognized this problem, and declared it to be the greatest evil.  Misology is defined as the hatred of logos, or the belief that rational thought and discussion are incapable of arriving at objective truth, and this is Nietzsche’s nihilism.   Misology is such a grave problem because it prevents all honest discussion of truth.  Objective truth is indeed a redundant phrase, for once there are multiple truths there is no truth at all.  This is the cause of modernity’s dishonesty when it comes to truth, as it at once wishes to discredit the idea of objective truth as primitive and naive, but at the same time to make statements that should be taken as true.  Only by declaring openly, joyously, and without embarrassment “this is true, and this is why it is true” can a philosophy have any validity.  Plato’s philosophy produces true health and freedom, and never for an instant doubts itself or the possibility of objective truth.  Prof Anderson points out that its freedom is not concerned with the freedom to do good but with doing good freely.  By describing Platonism in this way Prof Anderson turns the accusations that Nietzsche brought against Socrates and Plato back against the accuser.

Recognizing the falsity of modern assumptions and accepting the truth of Platonism through logical, discursive considerations is only the beginning of what a philosopher hopes to accomplish.  The true goal of philosophy is purification of the soul, and the structure of the book mirrors this progression, ending in a lengthy chapter providing a sketch of the Platonic practice of katharsis (purification).  Metaphysical knowledge can be accessed only by the soul and the purpose of purification is to render the soul clean and healthy in order to perform this function.  Only a healthy eye can properly access empirical knowledge and only a healthy soul can reach divinity.  For an eye to function properly it needs to be physically healthy, and for a soul to function properly it needs to be morally and intellectually healthy.  The result of these considerations is that a bad man cannot know metaphysical truth, although he can know truths about the physical world (or as the author says, “even a criminal can operate a microscope”).  This shows the vast gulf that separates the modern, scientific quest for knowledge and the search of the philosopher.  The main difficulty in explaining the problem of modernity to moderns is that they do not understand this difference, that when the ancient philosophers talk about “knowledge” they do not mean the accumulation of facts or even the physical laws abstracted from these facts that so fascinate today’s scientists.  Purification is a complete ordering of every facet of one’s life and a continuing project over many years that leads to the ultimate goal, union with God, in only a very few, select cases.

Although Prof Anderson emphasizes throughout the book the importance of metaphysics, the work is not a detailed exposition of Platonic metaphysics.  It is unlikely to convince or inform those unfamiliar with the details of Platonic philosophy.  It is recommended that such individuals consult the works of Plato and Plotinus.  But it is not the goal of the book to give such an exposition.  Rather it seeks to give a picture of what it looks like to live and think as a Platonist, especially one living in modern times.  The author speaks tenderly and from experience about the intoxicating power of Platonism and its possibilities for health and wellbeing.  He does not shy away from asking the difficult question “can we really overcome our own modernity?”  He never doubts truth or the ability of Platonism to reach the truth, but questions whether we moderns can actually remove the ingrained traces of modernity that haunt our souls, especially considering the centuries that have intervened since the disappearance of Tradition in the West.  But in keeping with the Platonic spirit, the author never becomes gloomy or pessimistic, and reminds us that even if the fullness of metaphysical realization is beyond our grasp, the mere foretaste of such rewards that we gain through reading the great philosophers far exceeds anything that modernity has to offer.

“By God, we mean gods.
By gods, we mean the Olympians.
By the Olympians, we mean nature.
By nature, we mean the inscrutable forces of nature.
By the inscrutable forces of nature, we mean the metaphysical
reality that manifests itself in and through them; their source; the
One.
By the One, we mean God…”

-Mark Anderson

Link to the book

Mark Anderson’s home page

“It is interesting to note that in almost every field or specialty, common sense tells us that we need guidance and such is sought from experts. But when it comes to spiritual matters the greater majority have no hesitation in choosing themselves as both expert and advisor. This despite the Muslim aphorism that he who uses himself as his own director has Satan for his guide.” – Rama Coomaraswamy

How many times have we heard “I believe in a supreme energy, something like God, but I’m against organized religion” or “I’m spiritual, but not religious”?

As we explained before, the socialization of spiritual experiences can give us a compared perspective, and a way to share values. Nonetheless, people opt for building their own spiritualities in a mix of concepts and spiritual-like media. People become lone wolves in their spiritual pursuit, but being realists, lone wolves aren’t precisely the most efficient members of the wolf pack.

The Jesuit priest James Martin says:

“Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness,”…”Religion is hard,” he says. “Sometimes it’s just too much work. People don’t feel like it. I have better things to do with my time. It’s plain old laziness.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/personal/06/03/spiritual.but.not.religious/?hpt=C1

The truth is that people choosing their own ways of spirituality, besides lacking compromise, misunderstand the basic tenets of religions they conveniently cherry pick from.  Let’s remember: “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”  Matthew 18:20, or in the words of Buddha: “Well awakened, they’re awake, ever the Buddha’s pupils, who constantly by day, by night, are mindful of the Sangha. [community]” Dhammapada, 298.

Religions, despite the obvious human mistakes, have been protectors of sacred literature, that literature which holds the concepts  “God”, “soul”, “spirit”. Nevertheless, people believe that these concepts are simply there, in the books, DVDs or websites they consume, thinking that they need no further discipline and organization to dwell deeper in the concepts that,  in the best case, are just theoretically correct.

It is currently common for biblical scholars to study the “historical Jesus”.^1,2 This interest is paralleled, and to a small extent influential on general interest in the topic among the public. In Christians, some of this takes the form of interest in details of Jesus’ “personality”, or even his physical appearance, as religious accessories.^3,4,5

“Souls which have come to a unitive knowledge of God, are, to use Benet Canfield’s phrase, “almost nothing in themselves and all in God.” This vanishing residue of selfness persists because, in some slight measure, they still identify their being with some innate psycho-physical idiosyncrasy, some acquired habit of thought or feeling, some contention or analyzed prejudice current in the social environment. Jesus was almost wholly absorbed in the essential will of God; but in spite of this , he may have retained some elements of selfness. To what extent there was any “I” associated with the more-than-personal, divine “Not-I,” it is very difficult, on the basis of the existing evidence, to judge.

[...]

The moral of all this is plain. The quantity and quality of the surviving biographical documents are such that we have no means of knowing what the residual personality of Jesus was really like. But if the Gospels tells us very little about the “I” which was Jesus, they make up for this deficiency by telling us inferentially, in the parables and discourses, a good deal about the spiritual “not-I,” whose manifest presence in the mortal man was the reason why his disciple called him the Christ and identified him with the eternal Logos.”

-Aldous Huxley, The Perrenial Philosophy, p.48-49

This focus on what Huxley calls the “selfness” or “I” of Jesus is irrelevant to the purpose of religion. That is, if the goal of metaphysical study is to know what is True (and what is true is eternal, immanent, and therefore a-historical), then a focus on the historical Jesus cannot aid our understanding of God, and in the worst cases can fetishize the individualistic aspects of humanity that the prophet condemns.

But Christians are not the only group which engages in this obsession with corporeal reality. Ironically, atheists also often cite historical studies, but to disprove the occurrence of events described in scripture, in order to to discredit religion in general. The result is often unintentionally comedic:

“Disproving the Bible in Under One Minute”

Both these parties miss the point. Whatever the historical facts of a religious event or person, its significance lies far above and before such a limited historical view. Rather, its significance lies in what is a-historical to it. We should always have an eye to what is supra-situational. Whatsoever emerges as consistent, through the transitory effects of historical frames, is the Ground, and to engage in historical speculation on spiritual topics is like trying to stand by jumping.

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¹Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew Rethinking the Historical Jesus. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2009.

²Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.

³ http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/real-face-jesus-christ/story?id=10235129

⁴http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/jesus.htm

⁵Day, Elizabeth. “Jesus Might Have Been Homosexual, Says the First Openly Gay Bishop – Telegraph.” Telegraph.co.uk. 3 Apr. 2005. Web. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1487002/Jesus-might-have-been-homosexual-says-the-first-openly-gay-bishop.html>.

Moderns excitedly point out that the holidays marking the birth and resurrection of Christ occur at times of the year that are of spiritual and ritual significance to many other traditions, particularly those that predate Christianity. Apparently it follows from this that if pre-Christian Europe held festivals during the winter solstice and the advent of spring, then Christian holidays are held at those times because of older traditions, not because they reflect the true timeline of the savior’s life.¹’² This in turn suggests that the origins of Christianity are mundane rather than divine.

But this is circular reasoning, because it makes a big assumption at the outset: that Christ is not the son of God. If Christ is the son of God, then it would make the most sense that his birth and resurrection did occur at spiritually and metaphysically significant times of the year. If anything, the fact that these times of the year are significant to other traditions is an argument in favor of the divine origin of Christianity. All truth is God’s truth, and all authentic traditions have their origins in Him. When a tradition has grown decadent and is replaced by a healthier tradition with stronger divine contact, syncretism occurs because there are symbols in both traditions that have the same metaphysical orientation. The incarnation and the winter solstice point to the same metaphysical truths, as do the resurrection and the advent of spring.

Also of importance is the consideration that Easter does not fall on the same date each year. This could imply that even if the resurrection did occur in the spring, by only celebrating it on a Sunday, Easter would likely not fall on exactly the same day as the event itself. This overlooks the fact that the date of the resurrection has double significance, in both the time of the year and the time of the week in which it took place. The divisions of both the year and the week have spiritual significance. The resurrection occurred during the spring, the time when the natural world enjoys new life, and also occurred on the sabbath, obviously the holiest day of the week for the Christian tradition. Celebrating it on a sunday at around the same time of year best captures and preserves this double significance.

The material world is one of time and change, change that often appears to us to be chaotic. But at a higher level, all material existence and change is bound by divinely ordained cycles. These cycles are many and are of varying degree, from a single day to the life of a man or the life of the cosmos. Within the cycles there are natural points of demarcation and division. That God’s manifestation on earth coincided with these points should not cause any difficulty.

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¹McDougall, Heather. “The Pagan Roots of Easter.” TheGuardian.uk. 3 Apr. 2010. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism>.

²Carlson, Royce. “The Pagan Origins of Easter.” Zenzibar.com. 1 Apr. 2001. Web. 4 Apr. 2010. <http://www.zenzibar.com/articles/easter.asp)>.

The following passage is quoted from the classic Buddhist text The Dhammapada (translated by Gil Fronsdal):

“One who recites many teachings
But, being negligent, doesn’t act accordingly,
Like a cowherd counting other’s cows,
Doe not attain the benefits of the contemplative life.

One who recites but a few teachings
Yet lives according to the Dharma,
Abandoning passion, ill will, and delusion,
Aware and with mind well freed,
Not clinging in this life or the next,
Attains the benefits of the contemplative life.”

This passage highlights an important issue for Traditionalists: the balance of contemplation and activity. We are excited by explorations of traditional wisdom, as we should be, given that this wisdom is the greatest human possession, a boon from the divine that can show us the best way to live; but we must not forget to simply live. In the worst circumstances we can become too attached to the academic search for wisdom and neglect the implementation of wisdom in our lives. If one feels regret or is distressed that one will never master the terminology and symbolism of every traditional doctrine, or that studying these doctrines in their original languages would take a lifetime of work, one must carefully examine one’s deepest motivations for study and see if they are pure. Buddhism stresses this point by stories of lowly figures such as washerwomen attaining enlightenment without ever studying the scriptures. The Christian tradition also features unlearned mystics who received the gift of grace. Academic learning is not essential to living a healthy spiritual life.

That is not to say, of course, that we are anti-intellectual. In traditional societies there are individuals whose sole duty is to engage in intellectual study of sacred doctrines, preserving the proper understanding of revelation for the entire community. But in the West, traditional civilization has long since disappeared, and those of us who wish to restore Tradition must understand that we cannot approach life as if we were members of a learned class whose sole occupation is to engage in intellectual activity. Proper intellectual activity is key, and without it no restoration can take place, but when traditional civilization collapsed, all of the traditional societal functions disappeared, not just the intellectual function. For the time being, we must be more versatile, and integrate the wisdom that we have into lives more or less within the mainstream of society as examples for change.