Short and worth a read.
OUPblog — Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World
George Berkeley and the power of words
Kenneth L. Pearce | Ussher Assistant Professor in Berkeley Studies (Early Modern Philosophy) in Trinity College Dublin
OUPblog — Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World
George Berkeley and the power of words
I think the true power of words is in speech (sound). Sound sculpts all of those neurons directly.
ReplyDeleteI think the true power of words is in speech (sound). Sound sculpts all of those neurons directly.
ReplyDeleteThis is the view of perennial wisdom, and it is now being tested in terms of measurable effects.
Got me thinking Tom.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, if we are to think about anything at all in this life, we should start our thoughts with the idea of an Absolute Principle - anteceding all manifest conditioned existence such as the universe, and all the life forms and consciousness in it, and – ‘beyond all human thought and expression’. I think philosophy has wandered in this regard, too far from the enduring questions; and science. And there is great utility in anchoring our thought life in the one Boundless Immutable Principle. You cannot partition or qualify The Infinite.
In the Ageless Wisdom, this infinite Absolute Principle, Absolute Simplicity, can only be described in negatives – everything is contained within: - it is Life but no Lives are manifest; it is Consciousness but no consciousnesses are manifest; it is Space but no circumference is drawn and no point exists, no line, face, solid, or time; it is endless Time from our perspective, but no change in state of consciousness is there to register it as ‘passing’, or realise that everything is forever in existence, manifest and unmanifest; it is Spirit~Matter but resolved back to its primordial state; it is Darkness hiding the Light, Electricity, Heat, Sound; it contains within its bosom all G.O.Ds (generator, operator, destroyer) and draws them back again into itself in ever evolving expressions; it is Absolute Randomness, Unlimited Potential - but everything it manifests is under Law. When manifest Life and Consciousness are within every atom, Intelligence within the Material cloak. We forget the context in which we exist.
When we look out the window at night to the stars, the mind shrinks from Infinity; the heart expands to embrace it.
Science I think has imposed Time on Matter (Space-Time) because they have not understood time as a succession in states of consciousness. The alterations in form and the material transitions are just ever changing waves on the ocean of the physical plane; it is the changing states of consciousness observing this that create the illusion of time, and should that consciousness elevate itself to an awareness of the Life of which consciousness is child, then the illusion is broken. I think too a lot of the problems science is having with gravity and its waves, dark matter and dark energy, black holes, string theory, relativity, the big bang, would all benefit from hypotheses formed from the Ageless Wisdom in its division of the physical plane into four ethers, gas, liquid, water; and division of the solar system also into seven: - adi, anupadaka, atmic, buddhic, mental, astral, physical. Knowledge is not entirely a modern phenomena. I hope the etheric body will be the next great discovery of modern medicine, and we will map the nadis, understand acupuncture better, and the role energy plays in good health; the etheric matrix and its centres, the astral and mental centres that govern them; and the building of the organs and city of the human body, made up of an infinitesimal number of fiery lives, cells, and organisms. The attraction of matter to the real etheric (energy) scaffold of the body; and this study of the microcosm will lead to an expansion of thought on the influence of etheric planets and systemic ethers, in the communion of physical forces. The etheric body, detaching itself from the physical body at death, would be a good place to start.
'Trinity ' and "Hell" Doctrines have been 2 of the most harmful dogmas made up by the academe of the "church" ....
ReplyDeleteMircea Eliade draws the distinction between the sacred and profane as world views. The sacred is traditionalist, and the profane is modern. The sacred world view is based on the great chain of being, while the modern is based on the consilience of science. This has manifested as the separation of the spiritual and the material, the divine and humanistic, the philosophical and scientific, whereas they are two sides of the same coin
ReplyDeleteThe two views are usually thought of as mutually exclusive, whereas from the broadest POV they are complementary. In this broad view, the profane view and its methods are appropriate for knowledge of the gross world, while the sacred world view sees the gross world of physical matter as nested in the subtle world of life energy, and both of these worlds nested in the causal world of intelligence, with the three worlds beginning the manifestation of the Absolute in various levels of finite consciousness. The sacred has its own methods. They are articulated in perennial wisdom.
In my opinion and this is my area of specialization, the clearest and most concise conceptual model of perennial wisdom is set forth in Meher Baba's God SpeaksMeher Baba's God Speaks. A very short synopsis is provided here.
Different spiritual teachers and traditions set forth the various methods for approaching this knowledge in the "laboratory" of one's own consciousness, and this is now a subject of scientific research in transpersonal psychology and cognitive studies on the assumption that more refined levels are reflected in the gross world in terms of measurable change.
The transition in perspectives is picking up speed in the West, although it has been widespread remains strong in the East, where traditionalism holds sway. The problem is that traditionalisms whose basis is perennial wisdom have been infected with an accretion of bogus beliefs and wrong interpretations, e.g, through institutional religions and speculative theology. As result of these distortions, perennial wisdom itself has become discredited. Perennial wisdom has also been overshadowed by the success of science as evidence in its application to technology. The balance is now being restored.
Thanks for the Eliade and Wilson links Tom.
ReplyDeleteI just want to say, respectfully, that I find the theogony of Blavatsky and the amanuensis Bailey far more profound than Meher. No claim to Godhead is made which makes sense to me. One striking difference immediately visible from the synopsis of Meher’s thought is the statement of the soul’s identity with Atma and by association Paramatma - ’which is one, infinite, and eternal’.
The Himalayan school speaks of the soul as merely a vehicle of Atma, just as the personality is merely a vehicle of the soul. The fourth initiation sees the soul dissolved, no longer required, as Atma takes full command of the persona; Atma itself being merely a spark, manifest in the Flame (G.O.D.) which has emerged manifest for the mahamanvantara from the Absolute, accessible to Atma on the lowest cosmic plane. Experience is my only teacher and the above works have a special resonance within me as does the work of Prem in one beautiful harmony. As unable as I am to find anything of resonance in Meher’s works, I am sure you will have had the same experience in other fields. Still, we are both alive and hungry, and wish each other well; and what more is needed than that.
Kabir: ‘Standing in the market place, people going everywhere – no man is my enemy and no man is my friend. Kabir wishes each, fare well’.
1. The same sign is often used as different symbols by different authors.
ReplyDelete3. Different types respond to different signals.
2. What strikes some as profound, others find complicated and abstruse.