The Artist
Art is perhaps what we would most commonly associate with creativity, but beyond the the physical medium and the academic field of the arts, we hold a more generalised perspective of an artist, as a person who strives towards a sense of aesthetic unity in his work. The artist is one who strives towards Ideals, who seeks to find the purest and most direct embodiment of the higher unity in whatever field he works in. The most common Ideal strived towards in art, and what we strongest associate with aesthetic unity, is beauty, but the artist engages across a vast spectrum of expressions including love, order, longing, and all the flavours of Ideals perceived.
The artist begins with a vision towards which his artwork strives. This vision engender a physical characteristic, but it is the Ideal which it embodies that is its essence; the vision should not be thought of as much as the image but as the singularity of the work, the meaning. This is why the initial image the artist holds in his mind is rarely ever the final piece. The artist grasps the initial intention and carries it through his work, allowing it to shape his inner discourse and find outward dimension through its own being. The artist is the medium between the inner and outer worlds of meaning, they convey the higher orders of being through physical expression in a profound way, making their work more than a whole in itself, but as a part in a greater whole that they so clearly embody and direct our vision towards.
The Artwork
The aesthetic unity of the artwork, what makes it art is found in its completion, in viewing the artwork as a whole. Each fragment of inspiration, each idea and movement, every brush and stroke, are all the parts of the artwork which amalgamate into a greater whole. The piece becomes more than the sum of its artistic technique and vision, but finds itself as an ontological totality, a whole in itself. It is in this whole that the piece finds meaning, to transcend its limitation in the physical medium to convey a message of higher unity, the artwork becomes a form of the Ideal strived towards. This is what it truly means to call something beautiful, we speak of an understanding beyond the sensational pleasure of the physical body, but of an abstract stimulus touching the heart with a beatific vision of perfection and oneness.
Unification
Artwork is the medium between the inward and outer realms, between the subtle and manifest. They are a singularity of their artistic parts, making them a crown-piece of the physical realm when considered as a whole in themselves. But they are also a form of their higher vision, of their intention, and in this they convey a greater meaning and purpose beyond their material structure. It is in this equilibrium and merging, in the form which purely reflects its singularity, that we can informally say that the form contains the singularity, a play on the poetic verse of the 'drop that contains the ocean'. Artwork truly is this drop; a part in a greater whole, yet a sea of beauty in itself.
We find ourselves lost in certain pieces of art, completely intoxicated with their essence, feeling at one with them. This corresponds to the clear path of conception towards the higher awareness, in viewing the artwork as a distinct whole in itself, we turn the minds eye towards the greater whole being strived towards, and find a deep resonance within the heart with the art form. As creativity and imagination are the passions of birthing forms in our image, in art we see ourselves within the work, we see our own story told from a higher perspective. The striving and idealism found in artworks is a reflection of our own lives, and in certain pieces of work the meaning is one we can deeply relate to. As the physical medium directs us to gazing at the greater whole, it inspires us to view our lives from the higher perspective finding our place within the cosmos and perceiving a greater dimension of individuality, one pure from egoism and shallow idolatries, but clear in its pursuit and purpose. Contemplation upon art raises our level of consciousness. In seeing beyond the outer, but grasping the inner essence, we see a spiritual light within art of oneness, binding the lesser and greater in fixed union and dissolving the artificial boundaries our ego erects which divide the purpose and meaning of form from singularity; this is the meaning of aesthetic unity.
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Friday, 25 September 2015
Imagination and Creativity
Imagination
Imagination is the conscious potential over the field of awareness, to imagine is to become aware of something not revealed by our immediate circumstances. I have used the phrase cosmic imagination to refer to the vast ocean of being engendered by the highest totality of the Soul; this is to view imagination from an abstract light as forms of awareness given to us by the ontological totality, it is a representation of the Soul's Will to form. This perspective on imagination however does not offer any new light on metaphysics, so rather I prefer to use the term 'imagination' from a psychological perspective in the context of our lives. This places imagination in a position relative to the field of consciousness centred around the microcosmic self, from this point onwards we can now refer to imagination strictly as awareness of the unseen physical realm.
It may seem that I have diminished the significance of the physical realm to be insignificant, but this is not the case: imagination plays a role of essential importance in conceiving to abstraction. In conceiving of numbers for example, we can see instances of a pair of objects but before the abstraction towards the number two can immediately take place we utilise our imagination to draw a greater perception upon the idea of 'pairs of objects'. From expanded perception is born the abstracted conception. Imagination is one of the most important faculties that we utilise on an everyday bases, in the intellectual pursuits towards abstract knowledge as I illustrated, but even more powerfully imagination is a very pure and clear pathway towards the Ideals.
In nature we find great examples of beauty, from the landscapes stretching onto the horizon, to the sun glazing our everyday surroundings to a wondrous new glow of perfection, we encounter many such opportunities of mesmerisation with and the appreciation of natures gifts. This is a source of inspiration, that provides the mind with a thread and the heart with a needle so to weave a new fabric that will radiate the colours of aesthetic wonder. With our imagination humans can build worlds filled with greater beauty and joy, expanded beyond the confines of our physical limitations that grasps the meaning of existence more clearly. These worlds, and the very act of their creation, is a striving towards the Ideals. Imagination does not provide us with worlds of being ontologically greater than our own, but it provides us with worlds that are freer and more expressive and so capture the heart of striving more firmly than our own. The extent of this underlying psychological intent in the works of human imagination should not be underestimated, for even the darkest and bleakest stories often contain a moral principle or greater meaning, an Ideal. Imagination paves the road to a higher state of understanding, an indulgence in this font of passion enlightens our lives with an awe and wonder of simply being alive, expanding our sphere of consciousness far beyond the confines of our ordinary circumstances.
Creativity
The desire to imagination, towards the joys we experience, is creativity. The Human Spirit is a creative passion, and I use this phrase in a way that would be far more powerful than saying the font of creativity is intrinsic to ourselves, it is not a dimension or essence of existence, it is existence. We have a permeating drive and need to give form and life, to create, as a reflection of the Spirit of knowing ourselves. It can then be said that we create in our own image, a phrase that speaks on every level of being from the physical representation of ourselves or our surroundings to the holy phrase 'God created man in His image' found in the many religions of this world. We know that our perceptions are no different from ourselves, but it may still be a difficult task to understand this as being an image of ourselves. The 'image' itself should not be confused with the physical representation in art for example, but rather the image is the meaning behind the work. The artist does not seek to capture the beauty of his eyes, but he seeks to express the beauty of his mind. In my livelihood and occupation I believe mathematicians to be a high form of artists, seeking to represent the abstract spaces of the imagination and intelligible faculties through a language balancing the play between formal logic and naive understanding.
Great Ideas
The creative spark is the active element which impregnates the passive field of imagination with a desire to self-expression found in the ideas and works of human civilisation. But what makes these great? In the countless ideas which are conjured and appear in the manifold of our lives, what distinguishes the trivial suggestion from the great idea that is to revolutionise the field of human understanding irrevocably? Great ideas are forged from the interplay of light and darkness, from the merging of the greatness of our spiritual essence and the humility of our meagre state, from the calling of Divine inspiration and the striving to self-expression, great ideas are birthed from the water found at the horizon of the two seas of our dual perspectives. It is when the drops of imagination are woven through the creative passion and poetic genius into a sea of beauty, that we experience the mesmerising wonder of God's touch to leave an immortalised imprint in our mortal minds, transforming dust into gold, the ordinary into the great. In this highest state of Selfhood we dedicate our lives to the service and duty towards knowledge, humanity, and most of all towards the Absolute.
Imagination is the conscious potential over the field of awareness, to imagine is to become aware of something not revealed by our immediate circumstances. I have used the phrase cosmic imagination to refer to the vast ocean of being engendered by the highest totality of the Soul; this is to view imagination from an abstract light as forms of awareness given to us by the ontological totality, it is a representation of the Soul's Will to form. This perspective on imagination however does not offer any new light on metaphysics, so rather I prefer to use the term 'imagination' from a psychological perspective in the context of our lives. This places imagination in a position relative to the field of consciousness centred around the microcosmic self, from this point onwards we can now refer to imagination strictly as awareness of the unseen physical realm.
It may seem that I have diminished the significance of the physical realm to be insignificant, but this is not the case: imagination plays a role of essential importance in conceiving to abstraction. In conceiving of numbers for example, we can see instances of a pair of objects but before the abstraction towards the number two can immediately take place we utilise our imagination to draw a greater perception upon the idea of 'pairs of objects'. From expanded perception is born the abstracted conception. Imagination is one of the most important faculties that we utilise on an everyday bases, in the intellectual pursuits towards abstract knowledge as I illustrated, but even more powerfully imagination is a very pure and clear pathway towards the Ideals.
In nature we find great examples of beauty, from the landscapes stretching onto the horizon, to the sun glazing our everyday surroundings to a wondrous new glow of perfection, we encounter many such opportunities of mesmerisation with and the appreciation of natures gifts. This is a source of inspiration, that provides the mind with a thread and the heart with a needle so to weave a new fabric that will radiate the colours of aesthetic wonder. With our imagination humans can build worlds filled with greater beauty and joy, expanded beyond the confines of our physical limitations that grasps the meaning of existence more clearly. These worlds, and the very act of their creation, is a striving towards the Ideals. Imagination does not provide us with worlds of being ontologically greater than our own, but it provides us with worlds that are freer and more expressive and so capture the heart of striving more firmly than our own. The extent of this underlying psychological intent in the works of human imagination should not be underestimated, for even the darkest and bleakest stories often contain a moral principle or greater meaning, an Ideal. Imagination paves the road to a higher state of understanding, an indulgence in this font of passion enlightens our lives with an awe and wonder of simply being alive, expanding our sphere of consciousness far beyond the confines of our ordinary circumstances.
Creativity
The desire to imagination, towards the joys we experience, is creativity. The Human Spirit is a creative passion, and I use this phrase in a way that would be far more powerful than saying the font of creativity is intrinsic to ourselves, it is not a dimension or essence of existence, it is existence. We have a permeating drive and need to give form and life, to create, as a reflection of the Spirit of knowing ourselves. It can then be said that we create in our own image, a phrase that speaks on every level of being from the physical representation of ourselves or our surroundings to the holy phrase 'God created man in His image' found in the many religions of this world. We know that our perceptions are no different from ourselves, but it may still be a difficult task to understand this as being an image of ourselves. The 'image' itself should not be confused with the physical representation in art for example, but rather the image is the meaning behind the work. The artist does not seek to capture the beauty of his eyes, but he seeks to express the beauty of his mind. In my livelihood and occupation I believe mathematicians to be a high form of artists, seeking to represent the abstract spaces of the imagination and intelligible faculties through a language balancing the play between formal logic and naive understanding.
Great Ideas
The creative spark is the active element which impregnates the passive field of imagination with a desire to self-expression found in the ideas and works of human civilisation. But what makes these great? In the countless ideas which are conjured and appear in the manifold of our lives, what distinguishes the trivial suggestion from the great idea that is to revolutionise the field of human understanding irrevocably? Great ideas are forged from the interplay of light and darkness, from the merging of the greatness of our spiritual essence and the humility of our meagre state, from the calling of Divine inspiration and the striving to self-expression, great ideas are birthed from the water found at the horizon of the two seas of our dual perspectives. It is when the drops of imagination are woven through the creative passion and poetic genius into a sea of beauty, that we experience the mesmerising wonder of God's touch to leave an immortalised imprint in our mortal minds, transforming dust into gold, the ordinary into the great. In this highest state of Selfhood we dedicate our lives to the service and duty towards knowledge, humanity, and most of all towards the Absolute.
Monday, 21 September 2015
The Primacy of Intention
Intention is Ontologically Greater than Action
Action is realised awareness on the level of physical being. To become aware of the physical sensations when for example touching an object, we must actually touch the object. As the microcosm of the physical human being engenders a limited state within the vast macrocosm of the universe, so too is human action of a restricted nature; we cannot always actuate what we intend to do.
This disparity is addressed by acknowledging the ontological priority of intention over action. Intention pertains to a higher order of awareness, intention provides the meaning behind an action. We may intend to give money to charity, the precise vehicle of this action is unbeknownst to us in the instance of intention, in fact if circumstances may forbid then we may never be able to engage in the charitable affair. The purpose of this article is to address the ontological primacy of intention so to solidify its root and cause as the heart of moral goodness. To proceed I offer the reader to consider an example of two people of varying intentions and actions:
Suppose that there is a person who wants to earn money and status in this life and works for a giant pharmaceutical company. Now suppose that there is another who has intentions of sincere goodness, to help their fellow human beings to the utmost power that their circumstances may permit. Unfortunately this individual is homeless, and in the long days and nights of suffering finds moral repose in simply clearing the footpath of dangerous rubbish. Our materialistic researcher may happen to discovery the cure for cancer, by virtue of accident and a nature-gifted intelligence cultivated by their fortunate and privileged upbringing. This person would be hailed a hero and a great human being, while our poor homeless soul in vision of utmost sincerity and goodness would be completely forgotten and overlooked by the masses of society. We live in a world in which each person is judged upon the merits of their outward actions and their inward being is entirely neglected.
This story should help the reader understand that it is intention which defines ones moral worth, it is in the sincere heart that the truth of goodness is realised, not in the outward actions which more often than not succumb to accident and chance. Of course we know that the macrocosm is a cradle to hold and nurture the growth of the microcosm, and the apparent accidents of life are in fact opportunities for self-realisation, in our example the homeless person would have attained a high state of moral excellence and spiritual goodness while the false hero would most likely have fallen further into the cage of ignorance guided by the praise and acclaim unto a state of self-indulgence and egoism. The worth of our actions are defined by their intent, so judge not character upon ones outward being, but assume the best in their inward selves.
It should now be clear to see that intention holds a higher state of being than action. I stated before that intention governs the meaning behind an action, it contains the reason and principle for acting. In this intention is the singularity of action. The intention is the totality of each way in which it may be actualised, the intention of charity is the singularity of each form in which charity may be given; the intent defines the action through its essence. Intention is a will towards action, this will of the immediate self is a reflection of the Soul's Will, intention thus forms a path to self knowledge. As all creation is in striving to God, our sincere wanting is the realisation of this innate primordial Selfhood, it is the awakening of the Soul in its yearning for the Absolute. From a dual perspective intention can equally be viewed as a striving towards the Soul, the purest intention embodies the Ideals directly in for example the striving towards goodness in moral conduct or beauty in artistic endeavours.
Intention must be Pure
We speak of the wanting being sincere and the intention being pure for the same reason that Ideals must conform to their moral centre of goodness which can be translated into the metaphysical statement of striving for the greater. All Ideals can be considered forms of goodness, a guidance towards the path of the Soul. So too must intentions strive towards greater being, for their essence in being a singularity of action necessitates a higher ontological unity. One cannot intend evil, for evil is destructive and diminishes awareness; the evil action shuns the greater, it is a moments of blindness. To lose sight of Divinity is moral degradation, to lose sight of the universe leads to sacrilegious disrespect of creation, to lose sight of other humans is the path to violence and oppression. The greater the extent of our blindness the greater the evil we succumb to. The evil 'intention' is to lose sight of singularity, we cannot therefore meaningfully speak of evil in any ontological capacity. Intentions are a singularity, they are born from the unity of being and are a path towards the Self and God, in this intentions must be pure and good. Sincerity is also a necessity to intend, to intend sincerely means not only to want in the physical dimension of hunger and lust, but in the higher orders of spiritual desire and truthfulness.
In Intention is Found the End
Intention forms the vision, the ideal to which the action strives. The intention may not be realised in completion within the limited world of action, but the intention itself is a realisation of the illimitable Spirit. This is the primacy of intention, as the ontological greater it is intention that is the defining essence of life, intention is the heart of action and the end in itself. The reward is found in the struggle; the purpose of the path is not to reach its end, but the end is found in the path itself. We should strive not to reach, but reach to strive.
Wanting to Want
If it is the pure wanting that is the highest state that we seek, if the want is the end in itself, then we should want to want. Wanting to love God is the true love of God, wanting to perfect the self is the perfection exemplified, it is in the sincere wanting to want that the want is realised. In the wanting is a humility found, an acceptance of our limited nature and in this a realisation of the transcendent reality. To claim we have is arrogance, for just as easily as the reward was blessed upon us it can be taken away, having is a transient desire, an illusion of permanency. As an example we cannot say that we love God, because even a second spent in forgetfulness and slumber would testify against our claim, how can we love God in this limited state? Rather the highest state we can achieve is the constant longing to God, a resonant wanting which pervades our lives to beckoning us to surrender completely to this Divine love. We must therefore want to want to love God, and from this ontology can be born the infinite ontological cycle of wanting which leads us to the desired state. To safeguard intention is to safeguard duty, character, and integrity. In time the actions and tribulations of men, all that we achieved and gained in this world, our possessions, status and legacy, will crumble to dust. But the ideals we strived towards, the intention we purified with sincerity, will stand far above the kingdom of men, and we will find an abode in God of all that we desired.
The focus of our life's activities should be to perfect our inner being through the realisation of the heartfelt yearning that we all seek, through the awareness of the fundamental dissatisfaction and disillusionment with outward reality that guides us to turn inward and answer life's greatest mystery: 'Who am I?'. It is the pure mind that beholds truth, it is the sincere heart that blossoms beauty, it is the enlightened character that does not strive to be content, but is content to strive.
Action is realised awareness on the level of physical being. To become aware of the physical sensations when for example touching an object, we must actually touch the object. As the microcosm of the physical human being engenders a limited state within the vast macrocosm of the universe, so too is human action of a restricted nature; we cannot always actuate what we intend to do.
This disparity is addressed by acknowledging the ontological priority of intention over action. Intention pertains to a higher order of awareness, intention provides the meaning behind an action. We may intend to give money to charity, the precise vehicle of this action is unbeknownst to us in the instance of intention, in fact if circumstances may forbid then we may never be able to engage in the charitable affair. The purpose of this article is to address the ontological primacy of intention so to solidify its root and cause as the heart of moral goodness. To proceed I offer the reader to consider an example of two people of varying intentions and actions:
Suppose that there is a person who wants to earn money and status in this life and works for a giant pharmaceutical company. Now suppose that there is another who has intentions of sincere goodness, to help their fellow human beings to the utmost power that their circumstances may permit. Unfortunately this individual is homeless, and in the long days and nights of suffering finds moral repose in simply clearing the footpath of dangerous rubbish. Our materialistic researcher may happen to discovery the cure for cancer, by virtue of accident and a nature-gifted intelligence cultivated by their fortunate and privileged upbringing. This person would be hailed a hero and a great human being, while our poor homeless soul in vision of utmost sincerity and goodness would be completely forgotten and overlooked by the masses of society. We live in a world in which each person is judged upon the merits of their outward actions and their inward being is entirely neglected.
This story should help the reader understand that it is intention which defines ones moral worth, it is in the sincere heart that the truth of goodness is realised, not in the outward actions which more often than not succumb to accident and chance. Of course we know that the macrocosm is a cradle to hold and nurture the growth of the microcosm, and the apparent accidents of life are in fact opportunities for self-realisation, in our example the homeless person would have attained a high state of moral excellence and spiritual goodness while the false hero would most likely have fallen further into the cage of ignorance guided by the praise and acclaim unto a state of self-indulgence and egoism. The worth of our actions are defined by their intent, so judge not character upon ones outward being, but assume the best in their inward selves.
It should now be clear to see that intention holds a higher state of being than action. I stated before that intention governs the meaning behind an action, it contains the reason and principle for acting. In this intention is the singularity of action. The intention is the totality of each way in which it may be actualised, the intention of charity is the singularity of each form in which charity may be given; the intent defines the action through its essence. Intention is a will towards action, this will of the immediate self is a reflection of the Soul's Will, intention thus forms a path to self knowledge. As all creation is in striving to God, our sincere wanting is the realisation of this innate primordial Selfhood, it is the awakening of the Soul in its yearning for the Absolute. From a dual perspective intention can equally be viewed as a striving towards the Soul, the purest intention embodies the Ideals directly in for example the striving towards goodness in moral conduct or beauty in artistic endeavours.
Intention must be Pure
We speak of the wanting being sincere and the intention being pure for the same reason that Ideals must conform to their moral centre of goodness which can be translated into the metaphysical statement of striving for the greater. All Ideals can be considered forms of goodness, a guidance towards the path of the Soul. So too must intentions strive towards greater being, for their essence in being a singularity of action necessitates a higher ontological unity. One cannot intend evil, for evil is destructive and diminishes awareness; the evil action shuns the greater, it is a moments of blindness. To lose sight of Divinity is moral degradation, to lose sight of the universe leads to sacrilegious disrespect of creation, to lose sight of other humans is the path to violence and oppression. The greater the extent of our blindness the greater the evil we succumb to. The evil 'intention' is to lose sight of singularity, we cannot therefore meaningfully speak of evil in any ontological capacity. Intentions are a singularity, they are born from the unity of being and are a path towards the Self and God, in this intentions must be pure and good. Sincerity is also a necessity to intend, to intend sincerely means not only to want in the physical dimension of hunger and lust, but in the higher orders of spiritual desire and truthfulness.
In Intention is Found the End
Intention forms the vision, the ideal to which the action strives. The intention may not be realised in completion within the limited world of action, but the intention itself is a realisation of the illimitable Spirit. This is the primacy of intention, as the ontological greater it is intention that is the defining essence of life, intention is the heart of action and the end in itself. The reward is found in the struggle; the purpose of the path is not to reach its end, but the end is found in the path itself. We should strive not to reach, but reach to strive.
Wanting to Want
If it is the pure wanting that is the highest state that we seek, if the want is the end in itself, then we should want to want. Wanting to love God is the true love of God, wanting to perfect the self is the perfection exemplified, it is in the sincere wanting to want that the want is realised. In the wanting is a humility found, an acceptance of our limited nature and in this a realisation of the transcendent reality. To claim we have is arrogance, for just as easily as the reward was blessed upon us it can be taken away, having is a transient desire, an illusion of permanency. As an example we cannot say that we love God, because even a second spent in forgetfulness and slumber would testify against our claim, how can we love God in this limited state? Rather the highest state we can achieve is the constant longing to God, a resonant wanting which pervades our lives to beckoning us to surrender completely to this Divine love. We must therefore want to want to love God, and from this ontology can be born the infinite ontological cycle of wanting which leads us to the desired state. To safeguard intention is to safeguard duty, character, and integrity. In time the actions and tribulations of men, all that we achieved and gained in this world, our possessions, status and legacy, will crumble to dust. But the ideals we strived towards, the intention we purified with sincerity, will stand far above the kingdom of men, and we will find an abode in God of all that we desired.
The focus of our life's activities should be to perfect our inner being through the realisation of the heartfelt yearning that we all seek, through the awareness of the fundamental dissatisfaction and disillusionment with outward reality that guides us to turn inward and answer life's greatest mystery: 'Who am I?'. It is the pure mind that beholds truth, it is the sincere heart that blossoms beauty, it is the enlightened character that does not strive to be content, but is content to strive.
Monday, 7 September 2015
The Spiritual Realm
Introduction
In the article 'The Methodology of Discerning the Unknowable' I explained the problematic nature of my first conception into the Unknowable, and essentially annulled the previous work and paved the way for a new unification in the Spiritual Realm. As such this article leads on from the end of my discussion on Ontological Logic and our discourse on Truth.
Knowledge is gained through the expansion of consciousness, through the striving of the fragmented self towards its whole which is an embodiment of the Soul's innate Will towards itself as I explained in my previous article. Under our new definition of knowledge it follows that the Knowable Realm, the field of all possible knowledge, can lead us directly unto the Soul. I do not view the Realms as spheres of metaphysical existence anymore as much as domains of my philosophy. We can speak of the metaphysics of awareness without introducing the concepts of the ego or limited awareness, first philosophy can be considered entirely impersonal in speaking of the field of existence and investigating the principles of creation without explicitly introducing a conceived notion of the self, but in truth the Self is a conception contained implicitly in speaking of ontological totalities. Thus the domain of the metaphysics of awareness is a first philosophy which encompasses the higher understandings of the self, it is the foundation which we build upon. Here I present the four domains of my philosophy, with each successive one being contained in the previous.
1. The Realm of Awareness concerns itself with the field of awareness.
2. The Knowable Realm concerns itself with the field of knowledge, i.e. realised awareness.
3. The Spiritual Realm is the domain of Ideals, the pinnacle of knowledge.
4. The Absolute Realm is the domain of gnosis of the absolute totality of the Self and of God.
Ideals
The spiritual realm is the abode of Ideals. Knowledge is acquired through the striving towards wholeness, through the realisation of awareness. To further explicate the notion of striving I recently updated my definitions page with new material:
The Will surmises the ontological necessity of form towards the existence of singularity. Singularity is ontologically prior to form, to speak of a singularity is to necessitate the totality of its forms, and so we introduce a metaphysical construct in saying that singularity has will towards its forms.
The dual notion of the Will is Striving. As forms exist only by virtue of their parent singularity we can say that forms strive towards their singularity, that the existence of the form in turn necessitates its higher singularity.
Here I have explained the nature of the Will and Striving as metaphysical constructs to ease the passage of realisation and discovery within my philosophy. We should not think of these constructs as some sort of extraneous devices or deeper ontological relationships in themselves, but we should understand the words as placeholders for basic ontology relating the whole and its part. I chose the words will and striving in particular as these hold a raw significance within our vocabulary, they are intrinsically human in their nature and are experienced in the multiple dimensions of life, in generalising this innate understanding to a metaphysical universe, a deeply personal relationship is built within the subtext of my philosophy; the connection between the personal and metaphysical understandings of these concepts is built upon our viewing the self as singularity and form. As an example, the striving of the immediate self as we naively understand it becomes a reflection of the striving of the Soul to God, of the Self to Wholeness.
Ideals are the forms of the Soul; they are the purest mirrors of awareness, forming the gateway of knowledge into gnosis of the Self and God. Ideals form the crown piece of knowledge embodying directly the Will of the Soul unto itself through the Striving to wholeness. The striving of the Self to the Divine through itself, what we understand as the striving to the greater, is explicitly manifested by the Ideals in their striving to the pinnacle of Idealistic existence, the Soul. Ideals vary in the colours of perfection, radiating the subtleties of inner being through the different splendours of awareness. The multiplicity of Ideals births the manyness of reality and gives rise to the ocean of mystery known as the universe of experience, but beyond the experiential self the transcendent awareness sees clearly the Being of the Ideals as united under the Absolute Ontology of the Soul.
My previous work on Ontological Categories provides a pathway to introducing the realm of Ideals; recall that a category is said to be ontological if it can be applied to all, in this it adopts a totality in its nature hence acquiring an ontological characteristic. Being is the most prominent example, the field of existence is the central most concept of metaphysics and ontology, it is the underlying foundation of philosophy which we draw upon for meaningful metaphysical discussion. The Ontological Categories directly provide us with the apex of this striving, to the totalities of knowledge of awareness. Ontological Categories are Ideals in that they reflect the Totality of the Soul in the highest form of knowledge. They are beacons of ontological light, each one in its own right may be used to illumine an underlying field of awareness and awaken the mind to the birthplace of realisation.
As the Soul is the reflection of itself, all reflections of the Soul can be seen as the Spirit magnified. This subtlety is clearest realised within the Ideals, the lesser self strives towards the Ideals as a reflection of the Soul striving towards God, but in realising awareness the universe of reflection collapses into the singularity of a drop containing the ocean. The unity of the field of awareness finds expression most clearly in the unity of Ideals, for one needs to only examine the essence of the Ideals to see that they differ in name and perception only, they are rays of light emanating from the same source. In this Ideals can be seen as the Soul itself, to illustrate this take the first Ideal that we introduced in the article on 'Ontological Categories': Being. Metaphysically Being can be viewed as a synonym for awareness, and as the Soul is absolute awareness it can be said that it too is absolute Being. This line of reasoning can easily be applied to all Ideals, indeed in the highest state of consciousness all within the conceivable domain can be seen as the Soul, and the Soul as all. Ideals are perceptions of the Soul, so one need only remove the apparent and outward from the conception of Ideals to realise the pure inner subtlety of eternal subsistence and transcendence.
Examples of Ideals
We must be careful to remember that Ideals are an innate conception of the Soul, their names and appearances vary from Worlds of Being but their ontological structure is the defining constant of the Worlds themselves. We cannot realise the Ideals through logic or reasoning, for these paths to knowledge are reflections of the striving to the Ideals themselves, but as all are related by their inner ontological characteristic we can use Ideals to compare and conceive of one another. In my system of philosophy which rests upon metaphysics and ontology as its foundation it is that 'Being' is the central Ideal that we can use to derive the others, for Being empowers the hierarchy of the Self birthing the central notion of self-realisation which is the essential core of striving.
I cannot really provide the reader with any sort of reasoning for choosing these Ideals for the reasons described above, but I imagine that the gravitating nature of their vast profoundness pervading the continuum of life provides a self-exemplary degree of higher consciousness. Ideals hold true to their name in that they are exactly that, a perfection that we strive towards in our work, and a basis, a font of creative spirit for the work to develop from.
Goodness is the first Ideal that I present. I have previously described a conception into Good and Evil through the definitions of that which raises and diminishes our state of being respectively. Now due to our previous work on the 'Levels of Awareness' and its preceding foundations all Ideals would manifest this definition through the acts of striving and liberating awareness. Goodness is an Ideal we usually associate with our character and actions, it can be said to be the seed of Morality.
We have encountered Truth before previously introduced as the apex of the Knowable. Now due to further development we understand that all Ideals collectively form this apex, but this is not to diminish the power of Truth. Truth is what we would associate most closely to knowledge, that all knowledge understood in the traditional sense strives towards Truth. The transcendent nature of Truth should have been realised earlier in the history of philosophy with developments in especially mathematical logic as demonstrating the impossibility of placing a conception of absolute truth within a logical system, in fact the concept of truth used within logic is a rather relative one treated as a property of statements rather than an absolute universal. Beyond the systems and theories of mathematics we must understand the universe of mathematics in its entirety as a perfected abstraction striving towards this Ideal of Truth.
Perhaps in this age more so than ever we are drawn to an Ideal of Beauty, however it is saddening that our society fails to see beyond the apparent forms of Beauty to see its hidden reality within the heart of all things. To gaze upon a beautiful face is a comfort of moments of satisfaction, but to be enveloped within the presence of a beautiful character is such a power of realisation that could not be truly contained within lifetimes. Beauty presents an aesthetic ideal of art, the artist strives to make his work a form of Beauty, but this deserves an entire discussion in its own right. It should also be understood that to each person the Ideals may not be equal in experience as they may be in being, the Beauty seen in knowledge left a deeper impression in me than the desire for Truth; it was once said by Plato in one of the greatest lines of philosophy or even human thought ever written: 'Beauty is a splendour of Truth', but for myself it would perhaps me more accurate to insist that Truth is a splendour of Beauty.
The final Ideal I will present is Love. Many traditions of spirituality found themselves upon the Ideal of Love, because Love is immediately seen as an inherently human substance as opposed to Being which is initially treated as an external field. We can experience Love towards the forms of the beloved, whether it be an outwardly directed force towards a material possession or another human, or an inward magnetism towards the Self or most eminently towards God, the True Beloved. Just as we explained that the object of awareness is no different from the subject of being aware, so to does the death of duality need to be applied to the Lover and Beloved, to Loving and Love. The extent of our Love, the degree of awakening of this limitless cosmic energy which can equally be said to be the preliminary field of existence, depends upon our level of realised awareness. Love is an ontological category in that it can meaningfully be applied to all things, for the very act of being is a vessel to reflect the Divine milieu of infinite Love.
We must question the metaphysical validity of what we would claim to be an ontological category. Hatred for example is not an Ideal; one could insist that they could 'hate' all things but this is really a misguided falsehood, it is not meaningful to say that a person hates themselves, for hate refers to a destructive belief that is impossible to satiate in the presence of the immortal spirit. Hatred is an ignorance that thrives in the darkness, when the eyes are closed you can profess your damned hatred as much as you want, but if you were to only peek at the pillars of beauty and awe that the world adorns, the light of creation would wash away this stain of impurity upon the perfected slate. Perhaps we could even say that hate is misguided love, for one hates that which he believes the world would be better without, and this calls to a deep love of the world which would be realised if one would only see that betterment is the gift of life and growth; it is the gentle touch of love that nurtures, not the harsh swing of hatred.
The spiritual Ideals of which I gave a short exposition into are undoubtedly engendered within my philosophy under a very personal character. To each person is their own universe of the Soul, are their own Ideals of striving, and their own gnosis of each state. The outward form, and even the inward state of the Ideals is illusory in independent being; Ideals yearn for the Soul and adjure for the Self to strive in their name, not to their name.
Awareness of Ideals
In the totality of life is found a reflection of ontological striving. The universe of imagination and the world of being conjured revolves around the conceived Ideals. We live most of our lives in a dormant spiritual state, asleep to true reality, but we experience certain moments of awareness in which we awaken from our latent state to glimpse at greater being. It is in these moments that the light of Ideals is able to penetrate the blindness of the ego, in which we awaken to a higher level of consciousness where we grasp the forms of the Ideals whether it be the awestruck wonder in beauty or the mesmerised absorption in truth. The experience of the Ideals in the lesser realm of the experiential self rests upon a metaphysical recollection of the higher state, the Ideals present a greater unity that the moment is in striving towards; a landscape could not be called beautiful without the associated metaphysical significance of the Ideal of Beauty as a higher singularity. The archetype of this striving to the greater is ubiquitous in our lives, it resonates so strongly with the Self and finds a clarity of self-expression in each person through the circumstances of their being for it is a reflection of the innate spiritual disposition towards wholeness. In seeing beyond the immediate, in dissolving the duality between striving and the striven, we realise an awareness of the greater, of the forms of the Ideal and the Ideal as a form of the Soul, and in profound moments of spiritual awakening we perceive Man's Spirit as a form of the Divine.
Ideals thus form the gateway into the Realm of Spirituality, they pave the path towards gnosis of the Self and Divine through the realisation of greater being. Awareness of Ideals is a realisation, it is a diminishing of the ego to uncover the reality that Ideals themselves exalt. The inner spiritual life is a presence of awareness; a mindful intention to realise awareness in our lives to fulfill our higher purpose. Ideals hold an ubiquitous presence within the milieu of this life, providing an abiding opportunity for the inner life to be cultivated.
My philosophy is one of universality, I do not wish to appeal to only the audience who align themselves with my manner of living or find similarity in our modes of consciousness, I seek an appeal to every human, a beckoning to each person to find the light within their own soul to awaken their true spirit. Despite the spiritual jargon this awakening need not take the form of a path of traditional spiritual discovery and enlightenment, the Spiritual Realm is the stairway to ones true being through the manner of their own living and presence. The Ideals order themselves in a presence completely unique to each Soul, they are the guardians of nurture of the lesser self tasked with its spiritual growth. The humble farmer is equally qualified to self-realisation through his livelihood and purpose, as is the learned scholar and sage devoting his time to intellectual and spiritual pursuits. As each person is equal in selfhood, each must strive upon their own path chosen to attain the perfected state of Being that they seek, it is the striving which is the path and it is the path that we strive towards, in this primordial struggle is found the purpose of human existence. The apogee of the path, the apotheosis of self epiphany, is the highest and dearest fruit of the garden of Ideals, but to bear the fruit requires a sincere and Willful intention towards a presence to cultivate the light of the garden.
In the article 'The Methodology of Discerning the Unknowable' I explained the problematic nature of my first conception into the Unknowable, and essentially annulled the previous work and paved the way for a new unification in the Spiritual Realm. As such this article leads on from the end of my discussion on Ontological Logic and our discourse on Truth.
Knowledge is gained through the expansion of consciousness, through the striving of the fragmented self towards its whole which is an embodiment of the Soul's innate Will towards itself as I explained in my previous article. Under our new definition of knowledge it follows that the Knowable Realm, the field of all possible knowledge, can lead us directly unto the Soul. I do not view the Realms as spheres of metaphysical existence anymore as much as domains of my philosophy. We can speak of the metaphysics of awareness without introducing the concepts of the ego or limited awareness, first philosophy can be considered entirely impersonal in speaking of the field of existence and investigating the principles of creation without explicitly introducing a conceived notion of the self, but in truth the Self is a conception contained implicitly in speaking of ontological totalities. Thus the domain of the metaphysics of awareness is a first philosophy which encompasses the higher understandings of the self, it is the foundation which we build upon. Here I present the four domains of my philosophy, with each successive one being contained in the previous.
1. The Realm of Awareness concerns itself with the field of awareness.
2. The Knowable Realm concerns itself with the field of knowledge, i.e. realised awareness.
3. The Spiritual Realm is the domain of Ideals, the pinnacle of knowledge.
4. The Absolute Realm is the domain of gnosis of the absolute totality of the Self and of God.
Ideals
The spiritual realm is the abode of Ideals. Knowledge is acquired through the striving towards wholeness, through the realisation of awareness. To further explicate the notion of striving I recently updated my definitions page with new material:
The Will surmises the ontological necessity of form towards the existence of singularity. Singularity is ontologically prior to form, to speak of a singularity is to necessitate the totality of its forms, and so we introduce a metaphysical construct in saying that singularity has will towards its forms.
The dual notion of the Will is Striving. As forms exist only by virtue of their parent singularity we can say that forms strive towards their singularity, that the existence of the form in turn necessitates its higher singularity.
Here I have explained the nature of the Will and Striving as metaphysical constructs to ease the passage of realisation and discovery within my philosophy. We should not think of these constructs as some sort of extraneous devices or deeper ontological relationships in themselves, but we should understand the words as placeholders for basic ontology relating the whole and its part. I chose the words will and striving in particular as these hold a raw significance within our vocabulary, they are intrinsically human in their nature and are experienced in the multiple dimensions of life, in generalising this innate understanding to a metaphysical universe, a deeply personal relationship is built within the subtext of my philosophy; the connection between the personal and metaphysical understandings of these concepts is built upon our viewing the self as singularity and form. As an example, the striving of the immediate self as we naively understand it becomes a reflection of the striving of the Soul to God, of the Self to Wholeness.
Ideals are the forms of the Soul; they are the purest mirrors of awareness, forming the gateway of knowledge into gnosis of the Self and God. Ideals form the crown piece of knowledge embodying directly the Will of the Soul unto itself through the Striving to wholeness. The striving of the Self to the Divine through itself, what we understand as the striving to the greater, is explicitly manifested by the Ideals in their striving to the pinnacle of Idealistic existence, the Soul. Ideals vary in the colours of perfection, radiating the subtleties of inner being through the different splendours of awareness. The multiplicity of Ideals births the manyness of reality and gives rise to the ocean of mystery known as the universe of experience, but beyond the experiential self the transcendent awareness sees clearly the Being of the Ideals as united under the Absolute Ontology of the Soul.
My previous work on Ontological Categories provides a pathway to introducing the realm of Ideals; recall that a category is said to be ontological if it can be applied to all, in this it adopts a totality in its nature hence acquiring an ontological characteristic. Being is the most prominent example, the field of existence is the central most concept of metaphysics and ontology, it is the underlying foundation of philosophy which we draw upon for meaningful metaphysical discussion. The Ontological Categories directly provide us with the apex of this striving, to the totalities of knowledge of awareness. Ontological Categories are Ideals in that they reflect the Totality of the Soul in the highest form of knowledge. They are beacons of ontological light, each one in its own right may be used to illumine an underlying field of awareness and awaken the mind to the birthplace of realisation.
As the Soul is the reflection of itself, all reflections of the Soul can be seen as the Spirit magnified. This subtlety is clearest realised within the Ideals, the lesser self strives towards the Ideals as a reflection of the Soul striving towards God, but in realising awareness the universe of reflection collapses into the singularity of a drop containing the ocean. The unity of the field of awareness finds expression most clearly in the unity of Ideals, for one needs to only examine the essence of the Ideals to see that they differ in name and perception only, they are rays of light emanating from the same source. In this Ideals can be seen as the Soul itself, to illustrate this take the first Ideal that we introduced in the article on 'Ontological Categories': Being. Metaphysically Being can be viewed as a synonym for awareness, and as the Soul is absolute awareness it can be said that it too is absolute Being. This line of reasoning can easily be applied to all Ideals, indeed in the highest state of consciousness all within the conceivable domain can be seen as the Soul, and the Soul as all. Ideals are perceptions of the Soul, so one need only remove the apparent and outward from the conception of Ideals to realise the pure inner subtlety of eternal subsistence and transcendence.
Examples of Ideals
We must be careful to remember that Ideals are an innate conception of the Soul, their names and appearances vary from Worlds of Being but their ontological structure is the defining constant of the Worlds themselves. We cannot realise the Ideals through logic or reasoning, for these paths to knowledge are reflections of the striving to the Ideals themselves, but as all are related by their inner ontological characteristic we can use Ideals to compare and conceive of one another. In my system of philosophy which rests upon metaphysics and ontology as its foundation it is that 'Being' is the central Ideal that we can use to derive the others, for Being empowers the hierarchy of the Self birthing the central notion of self-realisation which is the essential core of striving.
I cannot really provide the reader with any sort of reasoning for choosing these Ideals for the reasons described above, but I imagine that the gravitating nature of their vast profoundness pervading the continuum of life provides a self-exemplary degree of higher consciousness. Ideals hold true to their name in that they are exactly that, a perfection that we strive towards in our work, and a basis, a font of creative spirit for the work to develop from.
Goodness is the first Ideal that I present. I have previously described a conception into Good and Evil through the definitions of that which raises and diminishes our state of being respectively. Now due to our previous work on the 'Levels of Awareness' and its preceding foundations all Ideals would manifest this definition through the acts of striving and liberating awareness. Goodness is an Ideal we usually associate with our character and actions, it can be said to be the seed of Morality.
We have encountered Truth before previously introduced as the apex of the Knowable. Now due to further development we understand that all Ideals collectively form this apex, but this is not to diminish the power of Truth. Truth is what we would associate most closely to knowledge, that all knowledge understood in the traditional sense strives towards Truth. The transcendent nature of Truth should have been realised earlier in the history of philosophy with developments in especially mathematical logic as demonstrating the impossibility of placing a conception of absolute truth within a logical system, in fact the concept of truth used within logic is a rather relative one treated as a property of statements rather than an absolute universal. Beyond the systems and theories of mathematics we must understand the universe of mathematics in its entirety as a perfected abstraction striving towards this Ideal of Truth.
Perhaps in this age more so than ever we are drawn to an Ideal of Beauty, however it is saddening that our society fails to see beyond the apparent forms of Beauty to see its hidden reality within the heart of all things. To gaze upon a beautiful face is a comfort of moments of satisfaction, but to be enveloped within the presence of a beautiful character is such a power of realisation that could not be truly contained within lifetimes. Beauty presents an aesthetic ideal of art, the artist strives to make his work a form of Beauty, but this deserves an entire discussion in its own right. It should also be understood that to each person the Ideals may not be equal in experience as they may be in being, the Beauty seen in knowledge left a deeper impression in me than the desire for Truth; it was once said by Plato in one of the greatest lines of philosophy or even human thought ever written: 'Beauty is a splendour of Truth', but for myself it would perhaps me more accurate to insist that Truth is a splendour of Beauty.
The final Ideal I will present is Love. Many traditions of spirituality found themselves upon the Ideal of Love, because Love is immediately seen as an inherently human substance as opposed to Being which is initially treated as an external field. We can experience Love towards the forms of the beloved, whether it be an outwardly directed force towards a material possession or another human, or an inward magnetism towards the Self or most eminently towards God, the True Beloved. Just as we explained that the object of awareness is no different from the subject of being aware, so to does the death of duality need to be applied to the Lover and Beloved, to Loving and Love. The extent of our Love, the degree of awakening of this limitless cosmic energy which can equally be said to be the preliminary field of existence, depends upon our level of realised awareness. Love is an ontological category in that it can meaningfully be applied to all things, for the very act of being is a vessel to reflect the Divine milieu of infinite Love.
We must question the metaphysical validity of what we would claim to be an ontological category. Hatred for example is not an Ideal; one could insist that they could 'hate' all things but this is really a misguided falsehood, it is not meaningful to say that a person hates themselves, for hate refers to a destructive belief that is impossible to satiate in the presence of the immortal spirit. Hatred is an ignorance that thrives in the darkness, when the eyes are closed you can profess your damned hatred as much as you want, but if you were to only peek at the pillars of beauty and awe that the world adorns, the light of creation would wash away this stain of impurity upon the perfected slate. Perhaps we could even say that hate is misguided love, for one hates that which he believes the world would be better without, and this calls to a deep love of the world which would be realised if one would only see that betterment is the gift of life and growth; it is the gentle touch of love that nurtures, not the harsh swing of hatred.
The spiritual Ideals of which I gave a short exposition into are undoubtedly engendered within my philosophy under a very personal character. To each person is their own universe of the Soul, are their own Ideals of striving, and their own gnosis of each state. The outward form, and even the inward state of the Ideals is illusory in independent being; Ideals yearn for the Soul and adjure for the Self to strive in their name, not to their name.
Awareness of Ideals
In the totality of life is found a reflection of ontological striving. The universe of imagination and the world of being conjured revolves around the conceived Ideals. We live most of our lives in a dormant spiritual state, asleep to true reality, but we experience certain moments of awareness in which we awaken from our latent state to glimpse at greater being. It is in these moments that the light of Ideals is able to penetrate the blindness of the ego, in which we awaken to a higher level of consciousness where we grasp the forms of the Ideals whether it be the awestruck wonder in beauty or the mesmerised absorption in truth. The experience of the Ideals in the lesser realm of the experiential self rests upon a metaphysical recollection of the higher state, the Ideals present a greater unity that the moment is in striving towards; a landscape could not be called beautiful without the associated metaphysical significance of the Ideal of Beauty as a higher singularity. The archetype of this striving to the greater is ubiquitous in our lives, it resonates so strongly with the Self and finds a clarity of self-expression in each person through the circumstances of their being for it is a reflection of the innate spiritual disposition towards wholeness. In seeing beyond the immediate, in dissolving the duality between striving and the striven, we realise an awareness of the greater, of the forms of the Ideal and the Ideal as a form of the Soul, and in profound moments of spiritual awakening we perceive Man's Spirit as a form of the Divine.
Ideals thus form the gateway into the Realm of Spirituality, they pave the path towards gnosis of the Self and Divine through the realisation of greater being. Awareness of Ideals is a realisation, it is a diminishing of the ego to uncover the reality that Ideals themselves exalt. The inner spiritual life is a presence of awareness; a mindful intention to realise awareness in our lives to fulfill our higher purpose. Ideals hold an ubiquitous presence within the milieu of this life, providing an abiding opportunity for the inner life to be cultivated.
My philosophy is one of universality, I do not wish to appeal to only the audience who align themselves with my manner of living or find similarity in our modes of consciousness, I seek an appeal to every human, a beckoning to each person to find the light within their own soul to awaken their true spirit. Despite the spiritual jargon this awakening need not take the form of a path of traditional spiritual discovery and enlightenment, the Spiritual Realm is the stairway to ones true being through the manner of their own living and presence. The Ideals order themselves in a presence completely unique to each Soul, they are the guardians of nurture of the lesser self tasked with its spiritual growth. The humble farmer is equally qualified to self-realisation through his livelihood and purpose, as is the learned scholar and sage devoting his time to intellectual and spiritual pursuits. As each person is equal in selfhood, each must strive upon their own path chosen to attain the perfected state of Being that they seek, it is the striving which is the path and it is the path that we strive towards, in this primordial struggle is found the purpose of human existence. The apogee of the path, the apotheosis of self epiphany, is the highest and dearest fruit of the garden of Ideals, but to bear the fruit requires a sincere and Willful intention towards a presence to cultivate the light of the garden.
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
Levels of Awareness
We are aware of everything.
If all is awareness, and all is, then we are aware of all. This absolute awareness is in truth hidden; there is a oneness of being, a totality of the self, which is the essence and heart of awareness and the permeating fabric of existence. It is in any form of awareness that this absolute totality resides, for as awareness of awareness is no different from awareness, so too is its form not different from its singularity. The duality between the object of awareness and the subject of being aware is illusory, the very fact that we are aware is the lifeblood of existence. To illustrate this more clearly we can examine the ontological hierarchy of awareness; to perceive any physical instance of reality ontologically relies upon the singularity of the material cosmos contained within an ocean of abstraction, the ocean a drop within the cosmic imagination. Perception comes to fruition by virtue of the higher sphere of conception, the greater is prior to the lesser, the whole supersedes the part. And thus Oneness is the truth from which life germinates. My philosophy professes the oneness of being in every verse of knowledge and reasoning, every song of beauty and wonder; in any instance of awareness is some totality contained, through the path of ontological reasoning we can arrive at the totality of totalities and thus it is that the absolute totality hides within our gaze, though we have yet to realise it.
Why we do not experience awareness of everything.
To speak of a realisation of higher awareness is not to say that we rise from our animal spirit to become something more, not to say that we transcend our material form to attain a higher capacity of being and fill the vessel of the Soul with cosmic awareness. My speak of realising higher spheres of awareness may be misleading in the sense that we may be misguided to believe that greater awareness is attained. We are the Soul, we are absolute awareness; in my introduction to the ego I explained that we encounter a restriction of our sphere of awareness, an imprisonment within a lesser self. In this life we have forgotten our true nature, the path is to remember our natural state. The realisation is this remembrance, that we are all that we seek, the drop that contains the ocean. This 'active awareness' that we experience can be called consciousness, our degree of consciousness is directly related to what we call knowledge. As our sphere of consciousness increases greater awareness is realised and the ego diminishes, we gain knowledge of the higher realities. Consciousness is awareness through the lens of the ego, the more strongly we identify ourselves with the ego, the smaller the lens. Again, I should reiterate that consciousness is a construct to ease the understanding of revealing and realising the innate cosmic awareness of the soul, picture not our sphere of consciousness or awareness as increasing, but picture a darkness known as the ego shrinking to uncover the light of being.
Levels of Awareness
The Microcosm
We can easily become aware of physical reality, and hence knowledge of this level of existence is readily attainable. Recall that the Will is defined as the being of singularity unto itself, it is an elucidation of the ontological status of a totality. A totality necessitates its respective parts, in this we could say that a totality has a will towards the part, the singularity has a will towards its forms. The Will of a singularity unto itself and towards its forms is essentially the same thing. The Will gives fruition to a dual notion of striving, we could say that the forms strive towards their singularity. The notions of will and striving result from the ontological relationships of the singularity-form archetypes, they could be considered archetypes in themselves and can hence be seen throughout creation. Just as the ego blinds us to absolute awareness, it also prevents us from seeing the Human Will as it truly is. The lowest level of the Will is of the Microcosm, if we consider the lesser Self then the Will takes the form of what we conventionally call free will, it allows us to consciously become aware of something, and in this lies the totality of the lesser Self. When the human being as a material identity becomes aware of the physical realm, whether it be in external sensory perception or the internal reactive experiential thoughts that we have no control over, born is the singularity of the physical realm and thus an 'I' to be aware, a totality of the Microcosm is realised. When we consciously choose to commit to a particular action, the entirety of our being in the Microcosm is aligned to a particular cause through action, this 'entirety of being' again gives birth to an 'I' to do the action, so again the totality of the Microcosm is realised.
As the higher states of awareness are awakened, our new found knowledge is reflected in the lower levels of being and perhaps most expressively within the Microcosm. Ontological Logic explains this reflective capacity in its very nature, the higher levels of understanding, the pure understanding - that which lies beyond the intelligible form, is contained within the higher spheres of awareness but finds engendered manifestation within the lower spheres through the concepts of logic. As an example, gnosis of the realm of abstraction, the birthplace of mathematics, is reflected in the written order of logic and reasoning in the Microcosm. We use a certain form of the singularity of logic, in another world of being the system of logic would find a different flavour of appearance but all are united under the banner of their ontological foundation of what logic actually is. Language is the most pronounce example of the reflection of higher knowledge, the pure concepts of understanding are expressed in the words and forms derived from human experience, but our capacity of transcendent awareness allows the form of language to be meaningful. An attempt to speak of that of which we have no awareness leads to unmeaningful gibberish, what we call falsehood. To even begin to interpret the language of non-existent foundation is to fall into a realm of inconsistency and nonsense, the interpretation is null in the very fact that the words of language held no meaning other than their outward form.
The Macrocosm
Through the eyes of the Microcosm we perceive a greater reality, the Macrocosm, which is beyond the reach of our free will. To be aware of the Macrocosm is to be aware of this whole of which the Microcosm is a part , it is beyond awareness of some form of physical reality and so it is trivially beyond awareness of the Microcosm. Awareness of the macrocosm could be called gnosis of the universe. I use the word 'gnosis' here over knowledge for its spiritual and mystical connotation, for in this realised state of awareness we awaken to a Will beyond the Microcosm's to see the Universe as no different from our self, and as the Self has Will unto itself so it is that we willed the Universe. When the Microcosm is transcended and understood as a part of its greater whole, we no longer concern ourselves with that which the Microcosm has no control over, for the true self willed the Macrocosm as an environment for the Microcosm to find its totality, to know itself; this is a reflection of the Soul's Will unto itself to eternally realise its own absolute unity. The first stage of spirituality is to move beyond the lesser self to become 'one with the universe' as it is said, but beyond this lie further stages of awakening to behold. To say that our knowledge and sphere of realised awareness increases as the ego diminishes is to say that we are awakened unto a greater being of the Self. The Self moves beyond its limited form of the Microcosm to a more expansive state in the Macrocosm, but this too is limited - it is one Universe among many forged in the crucible of Cosmic Imagination. For an ego to persist beyond annihilation of the physical self would seem an alien notion to many, but I adopt a metaphysical view of the ego for the purpose of simplicity, clearly there is still a limited sphere of awareness and so I extend the ego to match the darkened cloud of blindness.
I must make a very clear point here to not examine the Macrocosmic Will through the eyes of the Microcosm, their relationship is of singularity and form, the difference as vast as the infinite and finite. To say that one Will's emotional turmoil or physical hardship as a opportunity and environment for growth can make sense if, for example one survives a car crash or goes through a difficult divorce; if these situations are approached correctly then they will ultimately make us stronger. But to say that a girl would 'Will' herself to be brutally raped or that a human would 'Will' a lifetime of torture would seem insulting to these victims of tragedy at the very least. All I can say is that from a spiritual perspective, all the suffering of this world paves way to a beautiful state of being in death, that under the Divine Law all is fair and all is good; a lifetime of misery is annihilated in the first moment of Divine Love. The physical ego sees naught beyond its own desire for pleasure and hatred of suffering, even if pleasure would be evil and the suffering good for us, but the Soul in perfected understanding of selfhood sees clearly. Moving not beyond the gaze of this ego one would question the existence of the 'Will' of other humans; are we to say that we Will the actions of others disregarding their independent agency or engaging in some solipsistic dialect? All the free wills of this world are forms of the universal Will, we are all one. By this I do not mean that there is one Soul, as there is One God there are many Souls, and so it is that the Souls placed within this world collectively willed their relationship to one another, this speaks of an innate spiritual connection between the Souls through God.
Gnosis beyond the Microcosm will find reflection in the lower order as we explained before, but this is not to say that the true knowledge is tainted or lost through the lens of the ego, one must understand that in transcending the self of the Microcosm one must then lose the veils of language and reasoning that once guided us, for they are a limitation of a knowledge which lies beyond the scope of these faculties. I use the word gnosis and mention its spiritual connotations especially, for in my experience I have found the spiritual life as the vessel for this new higher knowledge. In meditation and prayer where in certain moments one may remove the veils of the ego to receive disclosure of the true self, is found an awakened oneness beyond human experience. To attempt to even speak of it must take place under these limited terms, for example we could say that we can 'see' an essential arcanum interpenetrating the material fabric or that we can 'hear' a cosmic vibration of manifold existence, all these are expressions of what we call oneness. My philosophy does not actually really provide any knowledge into these mysteries of existence, I simply saw a unified light of oneness and drew it out into a theory of ontology, and through this I found a pillar for the wisdom blessed upon me to adorn. I attempt to offer a path towards the path of self-realisation, all I do is beckon the reader to strive, not merely in the world but within themselves.
Absolute Awareness
'All will perish, but the face of God' (Qur'an)
When on perceives this universe among many, each world of being as a drop within an ocean, and the ocean as a mere star in this universe of the cosmic imagination, realised is the totality of being, the Soul. In the deepest mesmorisation of the innermost sanctum of our contemplations and meditations we may completely break away from the grounding of the ego, to see things as they really are. In an ineffable singularity of awareness, when the concentric orbs of creation merge in an infinite light enveloped in its own presence, orbiting and simultaneously subsisting in a central point of pure Spirit, we may experience what could only be described as enlightenment: a condition so powerful that all words would bow in shame at the injustice they commit in its glorification. I do not know if it is even possible to achieve such a state within this life.
Absolute Awareness is the centre point and origin of the Will, the Soul cannot be without its life spirit birthing a cosmic imagination, this is the true nature of the Will - not to conceive of form, but to conceive of itself through form. In this presence of absolute selfhood, gnosis of the Soul, we realise a conception of the self which opens a door of perception towards God. Gnosis of the Soul is then no different from gnosis of God, as is expressed in the saying 'He who knows himself knows his Lord' (Hadith).
Just as the sun shines for the eye to see, God illumines for the I to be.
The Divine Will is the Absolute Unity unto itself; 'I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me' (Hadith).
All creation perceived takes form from a mold of awareness, the flame of life sparked by a Divine decree. What is the purpose of awareness? To be aware. We have an inborn tendency, a natural disposition towards knowing, knowing ourselves. All awareness is a reflection of the mirror of the Soul, and if we are to use this analogy then God is the light of the mirror that gives life to the image. The purpose of the mirror is for the light to know itself, our Will to know ourselves is a reflection of the Divine Will to know itself through our being, this is perhaps the closest we can get to understanding the nature of the Singularity of Awareness. Philosophy is born from spirituality, and the highest realm of philosophy concerns itself with an attempt to speak of the unspeakable, to make the hidden esoteric shine in some blossomed light whose manner we may study to provide a glimpse into the higher realities, delving into the bosom of the Soul to uncover the secrets of the Heart. We come back to this primordial metaphysical parable of creation itself recurrently, for it is the Sun which places all perceptions of this world of philosophy into a context of conceived truth.
In perceiving of God we find awareness as a reflection of his Being, and the Will as a form of the Divine Will. As in the Macrocosm where one realises that he is no different from the Universe, that just as their is free will of the immediate self so too is their the will towards the world of being in which we are contained, that the circumstances of our life were placed like a babe within a cot, for the nurturing and love required for growth and discovery, we realise that all this was the expression of the Divine Will. We are the Song of God. We are his knowing. Our Souls are the thoughts in his Mind. All is the Will of God, and we are the Will that fulfills that command.
If all is awareness, and all is, then we are aware of all. This absolute awareness is in truth hidden; there is a oneness of being, a totality of the self, which is the essence and heart of awareness and the permeating fabric of existence. It is in any form of awareness that this absolute totality resides, for as awareness of awareness is no different from awareness, so too is its form not different from its singularity. The duality between the object of awareness and the subject of being aware is illusory, the very fact that we are aware is the lifeblood of existence. To illustrate this more clearly we can examine the ontological hierarchy of awareness; to perceive any physical instance of reality ontologically relies upon the singularity of the material cosmos contained within an ocean of abstraction, the ocean a drop within the cosmic imagination. Perception comes to fruition by virtue of the higher sphere of conception, the greater is prior to the lesser, the whole supersedes the part. And thus Oneness is the truth from which life germinates. My philosophy professes the oneness of being in every verse of knowledge and reasoning, every song of beauty and wonder; in any instance of awareness is some totality contained, through the path of ontological reasoning we can arrive at the totality of totalities and thus it is that the absolute totality hides within our gaze, though we have yet to realise it.
Why we do not experience awareness of everything.
To speak of a realisation of higher awareness is not to say that we rise from our animal spirit to become something more, not to say that we transcend our material form to attain a higher capacity of being and fill the vessel of the Soul with cosmic awareness. My speak of realising higher spheres of awareness may be misleading in the sense that we may be misguided to believe that greater awareness is attained. We are the Soul, we are absolute awareness; in my introduction to the ego I explained that we encounter a restriction of our sphere of awareness, an imprisonment within a lesser self. In this life we have forgotten our true nature, the path is to remember our natural state. The realisation is this remembrance, that we are all that we seek, the drop that contains the ocean. This 'active awareness' that we experience can be called consciousness, our degree of consciousness is directly related to what we call knowledge. As our sphere of consciousness increases greater awareness is realised and the ego diminishes, we gain knowledge of the higher realities. Consciousness is awareness through the lens of the ego, the more strongly we identify ourselves with the ego, the smaller the lens. Again, I should reiterate that consciousness is a construct to ease the understanding of revealing and realising the innate cosmic awareness of the soul, picture not our sphere of consciousness or awareness as increasing, but picture a darkness known as the ego shrinking to uncover the light of being.
Levels of Awareness
The Microcosm
We can easily become aware of physical reality, and hence knowledge of this level of existence is readily attainable. Recall that the Will is defined as the being of singularity unto itself, it is an elucidation of the ontological status of a totality. A totality necessitates its respective parts, in this we could say that a totality has a will towards the part, the singularity has a will towards its forms. The Will of a singularity unto itself and towards its forms is essentially the same thing. The Will gives fruition to a dual notion of striving, we could say that the forms strive towards their singularity. The notions of will and striving result from the ontological relationships of the singularity-form archetypes, they could be considered archetypes in themselves and can hence be seen throughout creation. Just as the ego blinds us to absolute awareness, it also prevents us from seeing the Human Will as it truly is. The lowest level of the Will is of the Microcosm, if we consider the lesser Self then the Will takes the form of what we conventionally call free will, it allows us to consciously become aware of something, and in this lies the totality of the lesser Self. When the human being as a material identity becomes aware of the physical realm, whether it be in external sensory perception or the internal reactive experiential thoughts that we have no control over, born is the singularity of the physical realm and thus an 'I' to be aware, a totality of the Microcosm is realised. When we consciously choose to commit to a particular action, the entirety of our being in the Microcosm is aligned to a particular cause through action, this 'entirety of being' again gives birth to an 'I' to do the action, so again the totality of the Microcosm is realised.
As the higher states of awareness are awakened, our new found knowledge is reflected in the lower levels of being and perhaps most expressively within the Microcosm. Ontological Logic explains this reflective capacity in its very nature, the higher levels of understanding, the pure understanding - that which lies beyond the intelligible form, is contained within the higher spheres of awareness but finds engendered manifestation within the lower spheres through the concepts of logic. As an example, gnosis of the realm of abstraction, the birthplace of mathematics, is reflected in the written order of logic and reasoning in the Microcosm. We use a certain form of the singularity of logic, in another world of being the system of logic would find a different flavour of appearance but all are united under the banner of their ontological foundation of what logic actually is. Language is the most pronounce example of the reflection of higher knowledge, the pure concepts of understanding are expressed in the words and forms derived from human experience, but our capacity of transcendent awareness allows the form of language to be meaningful. An attempt to speak of that of which we have no awareness leads to unmeaningful gibberish, what we call falsehood. To even begin to interpret the language of non-existent foundation is to fall into a realm of inconsistency and nonsense, the interpretation is null in the very fact that the words of language held no meaning other than their outward form.
The Macrocosm
Through the eyes of the Microcosm we perceive a greater reality, the Macrocosm, which is beyond the reach of our free will. To be aware of the Macrocosm is to be aware of this whole of which the Microcosm is a part , it is beyond awareness of some form of physical reality and so it is trivially beyond awareness of the Microcosm. Awareness of the macrocosm could be called gnosis of the universe. I use the word 'gnosis' here over knowledge for its spiritual and mystical connotation, for in this realised state of awareness we awaken to a Will beyond the Microcosm's to see the Universe as no different from our self, and as the Self has Will unto itself so it is that we willed the Universe. When the Microcosm is transcended and understood as a part of its greater whole, we no longer concern ourselves with that which the Microcosm has no control over, for the true self willed the Macrocosm as an environment for the Microcosm to find its totality, to know itself; this is a reflection of the Soul's Will unto itself to eternally realise its own absolute unity. The first stage of spirituality is to move beyond the lesser self to become 'one with the universe' as it is said, but beyond this lie further stages of awakening to behold. To say that our knowledge and sphere of realised awareness increases as the ego diminishes is to say that we are awakened unto a greater being of the Self. The Self moves beyond its limited form of the Microcosm to a more expansive state in the Macrocosm, but this too is limited - it is one Universe among many forged in the crucible of Cosmic Imagination. For an ego to persist beyond annihilation of the physical self would seem an alien notion to many, but I adopt a metaphysical view of the ego for the purpose of simplicity, clearly there is still a limited sphere of awareness and so I extend the ego to match the darkened cloud of blindness.
I must make a very clear point here to not examine the Macrocosmic Will through the eyes of the Microcosm, their relationship is of singularity and form, the difference as vast as the infinite and finite. To say that one Will's emotional turmoil or physical hardship as a opportunity and environment for growth can make sense if, for example one survives a car crash or goes through a difficult divorce; if these situations are approached correctly then they will ultimately make us stronger. But to say that a girl would 'Will' herself to be brutally raped or that a human would 'Will' a lifetime of torture would seem insulting to these victims of tragedy at the very least. All I can say is that from a spiritual perspective, all the suffering of this world paves way to a beautiful state of being in death, that under the Divine Law all is fair and all is good; a lifetime of misery is annihilated in the first moment of Divine Love. The physical ego sees naught beyond its own desire for pleasure and hatred of suffering, even if pleasure would be evil and the suffering good for us, but the Soul in perfected understanding of selfhood sees clearly. Moving not beyond the gaze of this ego one would question the existence of the 'Will' of other humans; are we to say that we Will the actions of others disregarding their independent agency or engaging in some solipsistic dialect? All the free wills of this world are forms of the universal Will, we are all one. By this I do not mean that there is one Soul, as there is One God there are many Souls, and so it is that the Souls placed within this world collectively willed their relationship to one another, this speaks of an innate spiritual connection between the Souls through God.
Gnosis beyond the Microcosm will find reflection in the lower order as we explained before, but this is not to say that the true knowledge is tainted or lost through the lens of the ego, one must understand that in transcending the self of the Microcosm one must then lose the veils of language and reasoning that once guided us, for they are a limitation of a knowledge which lies beyond the scope of these faculties. I use the word gnosis and mention its spiritual connotations especially, for in my experience I have found the spiritual life as the vessel for this new higher knowledge. In meditation and prayer where in certain moments one may remove the veils of the ego to receive disclosure of the true self, is found an awakened oneness beyond human experience. To attempt to even speak of it must take place under these limited terms, for example we could say that we can 'see' an essential arcanum interpenetrating the material fabric or that we can 'hear' a cosmic vibration of manifold existence, all these are expressions of what we call oneness. My philosophy does not actually really provide any knowledge into these mysteries of existence, I simply saw a unified light of oneness and drew it out into a theory of ontology, and through this I found a pillar for the wisdom blessed upon me to adorn. I attempt to offer a path towards the path of self-realisation, all I do is beckon the reader to strive, not merely in the world but within themselves.
Absolute Awareness
'All will perish, but the face of God' (Qur'an)
When on perceives this universe among many, each world of being as a drop within an ocean, and the ocean as a mere star in this universe of the cosmic imagination, realised is the totality of being, the Soul. In the deepest mesmorisation of the innermost sanctum of our contemplations and meditations we may completely break away from the grounding of the ego, to see things as they really are. In an ineffable singularity of awareness, when the concentric orbs of creation merge in an infinite light enveloped in its own presence, orbiting and simultaneously subsisting in a central point of pure Spirit, we may experience what could only be described as enlightenment: a condition so powerful that all words would bow in shame at the injustice they commit in its glorification. I do not know if it is even possible to achieve such a state within this life.
Absolute Awareness is the centre point and origin of the Will, the Soul cannot be without its life spirit birthing a cosmic imagination, this is the true nature of the Will - not to conceive of form, but to conceive of itself through form. In this presence of absolute selfhood, gnosis of the Soul, we realise a conception of the self which opens a door of perception towards God. Gnosis of the Soul is then no different from gnosis of God, as is expressed in the saying 'He who knows himself knows his Lord' (Hadith).
Just as the sun shines for the eye to see, God illumines for the I to be.
The Divine Will is the Absolute Unity unto itself; 'I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me' (Hadith).
All creation perceived takes form from a mold of awareness, the flame of life sparked by a Divine decree. What is the purpose of awareness? To be aware. We have an inborn tendency, a natural disposition towards knowing, knowing ourselves. All awareness is a reflection of the mirror of the Soul, and if we are to use this analogy then God is the light of the mirror that gives life to the image. The purpose of the mirror is for the light to know itself, our Will to know ourselves is a reflection of the Divine Will to know itself through our being, this is perhaps the closest we can get to understanding the nature of the Singularity of Awareness. Philosophy is born from spirituality, and the highest realm of philosophy concerns itself with an attempt to speak of the unspeakable, to make the hidden esoteric shine in some blossomed light whose manner we may study to provide a glimpse into the higher realities, delving into the bosom of the Soul to uncover the secrets of the Heart. We come back to this primordial metaphysical parable of creation itself recurrently, for it is the Sun which places all perceptions of this world of philosophy into a context of conceived truth.
In perceiving of God we find awareness as a reflection of his Being, and the Will as a form of the Divine Will. As in the Macrocosm where one realises that he is no different from the Universe, that just as their is free will of the immediate self so too is their the will towards the world of being in which we are contained, that the circumstances of our life were placed like a babe within a cot, for the nurturing and love required for growth and discovery, we realise that all this was the expression of the Divine Will. We are the Song of God. We are his knowing. Our Souls are the thoughts in his Mind. All is the Will of God, and we are the Will that fulfills that command.
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