Philosophy as Preparation for Death
“ When Chuang Tzu's wife died, Hui
Tzu came to the house to join in the rites of mourning. , To his surprise he found Chuang Tzu sitting
with an inverted bowl on his knees, drumming upon it and singing a song. “After
all,” said Hui Tzu "She lived with you, brought up your children, grew old
along with you. That you should not
mourn for her is bad enough; but to let your friends find you drumming and
singing - that is going too far."
”You misjudge me” said Chuang
Tzu. “When she died, I was in despair,
as any man well might be. But soon,
pondering on what had happened, I told myself that in death no strange new fate
befalls us. In the beginning we lack not
only life but form. Not form only, but
spirit. We are blended in the one great
featureless indistinguishable mass. Then
a time came when the mass evolved spirit, spirit evolved form and form evolved
life. And now life in its turn has
evolved death. For not nature only but
man’s being has its seasons, its sequence of spring and autumn, summer and winter. If someone is tired and has gone to lie
down, we do not pursue him with shouting and bawling. She whom I have lost has lain down to sleep
for a while in the Great Inner Room. To
break in upon her rest with the noise of lamentation would but show that I knew
nothing of nature’s Sovereign Law. That
is why I ceased to mourn.” ”
My take on the existence of Aliens is that they are no different than any other soul. As every man is essentially spirit, it follows that everyone is an extraterrestrial since the nature of spirit is not of the Earth. While spirit can exists solely in its own nature independent of any foreign nature, if it wishes to partake in the foreign terrestrial nature it must embody itself in an Earthly form.
The
metaphysical and physical categories are another instance of man being an Aesthetic/Ethical paradox (in the Kierkegaardic sense). The metaphysical ultimately relates to the "serious" (i.e. Life and Death, or Good and Evil), whereas the physical merely relates to
entertainment (i.e. boring and interesting).
The
physical category points to the temporal aspect of man which is changeable and
mortal. It relates to body and the senses as well as all the desires and
passions thereof. This is the finite part of man that exists in Time. For the
physical man, Time is the most precious thing, and like a prisoner he is
consumed with how he will serve his time and how he can fill it with amusement for his remaining days, god forbid he have nothing to do with his limited time.
For
the physical man there is only fate, since there is no physical will. The
physical is always an effect, and never the cause. If the physical man is not "becoming" more like himself in the
light of the metaphysical, he is merely being, which is no different than
role-playing or pretending like an actor on the stage of life - fake. It is possible for the physical man to
reflect the metaphysical in his "becoming", and this is the aim of
the sage who walks the Earth like Jesus, Socrates or Chaung Tzu. Chaung
Tzu says "that which acts on all and meddles in none - is heaven (the
metaphysical)".
The
metaphysical relates to the eternal aspect of man which is unchanging. It
relates to the soul of man, but that can be confusing since the concept of the
soul encompasses the whole man, both the metaphysical and physical. It is then correct to say that the
metaphysical relates to the spirit and soul, and the physical relates to the body. Thus the metaphysical is the immortal , unchanging
aspect of man that exists in Eternity.
Eternity isn't so far off as one might think. It lies directly
within and is accessible to anyone with sincere faith (no different than
unifying self with the spirit that constitutes self). It is right there
in front of you, but you can't see it because you are looking too far. We
can arrive at faith through philosophical discourse so that faith isn't a
matter of blind ignorant acceptance. Knowledge understanding and wisdom
are the basis of Faith, but once true Faith is attained the former can be
discarded.
The
metaphysical is the cause of the physical effects, and this is what constitutes
the will. Here we find a paradox about will. True will lies in
willing one thing: to will the Good in all truthfulness (to be willing to do
all or willing to suffer all for the victory of the Good in the world).
The Good is the primary and greatest attribute of the metaphysical. To will anything other than the Good is to
willingly forfeit the will to fate and lose the metaphysical. Once a man
loses the metaphysical, he loses his inwardness: he becomes (to various
degrees) a
numerical value in mindless collective mass of social, tool building
animals in pursuit of their own selfish interests. In such a scenario
there is no individual and no free will. The interesting thing is that
when you reject the will you lose yourself and you lose everything to fate, yet
when you truthfully will the Good you regain everything as a free man, never to
be a slave to the inferior you relate to everything through the light of the
metaphysical so that you possess all in eternity.
Faith
is the biggest factor in succeeding to truthfully will the Good. To be willing to do
all or to suffer all for the victory of the Good in the world implies the
possibility of suffering the worst of all physical fates: death, disease, and torture. Hence,
this necessitates the cultivation of the metaphysical in man especially in
regards to the immortality of the soul. Cultivating the metaphysical
is as Busdriver says "[to] kill your employer", the one that holds the burden of worldly affairs above your head and calls it important, calls it reality. Religion and philosophy become the only refuge. Philosophy is the path that brings us to
religion, and religion is where all discourse ends and we attain Faith. So Faith is not so blind as one may think, and may lead to a state of grace.
"Killing your employer" is an extremely appropriate phrase concerning the worldly persona of an individual;
as Socrates says "the one aim of those who practice philosophy in
the proper manner is to practice for death and dying." He says
"[true philosophers are] training for dying and they fear death the least
of all men." He refers to philosophy as "training to die
easily". So death is, in actuality, a very trivial event in the big
scheme of things and amounts to nothing in comparison to truthfully willing the
Good. The trade-off is a ridiculous disparity, and the failure to will
the good amounts to a pathetic cowardice. For what is it that man fears of losing in death and mutilation, he thinks it is himself but it is merely the worldly persona. He can never escape himself and must account for himself as an individual in eternity .
Of course, the cultivation of
the soul, necessitates that one must know of and acknowledge the soul's
existence. It is the greatest tragedy that modern men have completely lost
the metaphysical and reject their own souls. We see our current history
acting in accord as the world increasingly becomes soulless. Yet, this is
only temporary as the individual man is always given some wiggle room in nature
to correct himself before his self destruction commences and nature is set aright.
But the man in the crowd can never be saved. Everyone dies and
returns to where they were the whole time - to eternity, where every one must
answer for himself as an individual. Men live meaningless and sometimes
wicked lives out of pure cowardice towards death and suffering, which is begat
by a willful self imposed ignorance of their own being; and such men are too
busy meandering through life to seriously consider these things, they have
built an arsenal of excuses to assist them when they are confronted by these
inescapable issues. That which is Serious is a bore, and they only are interested in entertainment.
The metaphysical man does not "become" like the physical man does. The metaphysical man counts among those things which truly "are", the universal forms, or spiritual essences. Being of the metaphysical man is unlike the being of the physical man because it is not pretend and false, and subject to constant change, but is real and true since it is eternal and unchanging. The metaphysical man is true being. The more the physical man is united to the metaphysical self through becoming, the less cataclysmic will the adjustment be at the death of the body. The metaphysical man is always oriented in eternity and well prepared when it is time to return to the place where he always was.
Life has been referred to as a game. The confusion
comes in thinking that the player in the game is the true self. So it is not that we must avoid playing the game, but that we must not confuse ourselves
in thinking that it is anything more than a game, and that we are anything more
than players in relation to it; we must not confuse the player in the game for
the true self who is in the game but not of the game. But we can still play the game, and even if we lose the
game by a blowout, we can still appreciate it more and gain more out of it than
the greatest champion to ever play the game since we exist after the game has
ended, for we have not lost our selves to the game.
Bring on the puppets and dragons, let the ceremonies begin.
For they have come to shatter time and bring back the dead.
Newborn, an army of me, bearing change on the front line,
and shadows in the field mines to wilderness the lights of the city.
I have seen them a tumultuous army of bastards and beggars,
madmen and idiots, witches and harlots, dancers and lunatics, poets and priests.
Orbiting the realms of the ordinary through the ordinance of those ordained by the beast.
These are our children, love laden life lanterns, casting shadows to shadow the flock.
Who, will deny these children when thrice the crow cawks."
-(Saul Williams)
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