A Tribute to Philosophy

Ever since I started writing I felt a battle raging within me between the philosopher and the poet. That, as it turned out, had its own good resources and meanings which would only reveal themselves on the pathway of my becoming.

In my mind and experience, one of the functions I assigned to poetry was that of mysticism. I had always felt a deep need within me to link up both the poetic and the mystical experiences. Now, in retrospect, I realize that what fueled this impulse was a deep seated depression and tiredness gnawing in the darkness at the root of my soul. My will was sick, uneasy with itself and with the world and the easiest way to cure it was simply by surrendering it to some force outside itself thus remedying the problem at the root and without ever actually doing anything. On the experiential realm this meant thriving off the discharge — the poetic, the mystic — as often as possible and extending it, if could be, into eternity itself, into an all encompassing stillness. Ah, the mischievousness and deception of the will! The mischievousness of life!

Of course, there was a catch. The pesky philosopher within wouldn’t let me have my way. With his unwavering honesty and seriousness he kept uncovering and unmasking what I toiled and toiled to keep hidden even from myself. I wanted to drown, and reason was the only thing keeping my head above the waves. Reason had to be willed to provide an ultimate transcendence into an eternal where all searching, all seeking, all growing, all thinking, all changing could be stilled and be ridden of once and for all! The world could finally be made perfect and I could just rot in my place. To he who has not experienced the bewitching force of this feeling no words can relate it.

But all the time the philosopher, in his deep wisdom, was aware of what it is that was going on in my soul, and he understood quite well that this had to be experienced, that this road has to be walked all the way to its end so that I could clean its dust off my feet once and for all. And so it happened, a couple of weeks ago it happened. I suddenly woke up like someone who had been in a coma. Utterly bewildered and perplexed I began asking myself and trying to remember just where exactly I had been and what had happened. This was, up to now, my life’s strangest experiences.

I almost remember the exact moment of epiphany. I had read BGE’s preface and first couple aphorisms before going to sleep, thinking. Thinking about how strange the place is in which I’m now living. Here I was dwelling in the Truth when all my life’s seeking and understanding was built brick by brick upon thinking, perspectives, change, decay, growth, etc. And yet although I grasped this, although I knew it, I didn’t really know it. My soul was so numb that I couldn’t really feel and experience what my mind was telling me. Here were remnants of experiences and feelings and memories fighting a losing battle against an all encompassing, eternal present and nothingness and death. And yet, the next day as I walked to my car it happened. I felt the wind breezing all around me, rustling through the trees and whispering strange voices. With the wind I felt things moving around me, a great many things, an infinity of things moving. And suddenly I felt myself moving again in the midst of all these things! Behold, the world came to life again and bloomed in full colour and all of this in the split of a second. The feeling that came over me, remembering it now I cry; it flowed over me with such power, a power I had never in my life experienced or thought possible, it utterly transfigured me and in one stroke cut all decaying roots, broke all withered branches, and made me bloom again. All in one stroke!

Now I realize, it had been waiting to happen for a long time, and what then seemed a single stroke was a lifetime of dedication, thinking, experiencing, and growing. What happened was continuous with a deeper subterranean dynamic. Behold, the child became a man. And this, for me, in what it imparted to me, is the kernel of spirituality and manhood. For here I stood in the midst of the world, not against or outside it anymore.

The philosopher vanquished, and perhaps only now I can begin to write some poetry. And philosophy! How I missed philosophy!

Towards a new economy of being.

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