Brief Demonstration of Reincarnation

A Very Brief A Priori Demonstration of the Immortality of the Soul and of Reincarnation

by Eric S. Fallick


An understanding of the immortality of the soul or self and reincarnation1 is among the very most basic elements of a genuine spiritual life. Although a basic feature of the weltanschauung of the Indo-hellenistic systems and those at least in part derived from them,2 and despite their being, in fact, obvious, these concepts do not seem to be acceptable to many moderns today. There are, perhaps, two reasons for this that readily suggest themselves. The first is the dominance of the Abrahamic systems and their belief structures, as well as the influence of these on Western thinkers, even if such influence is not recognized or acknowledged.3 The second is, in these dark times, the dominance of realism, positivism, reductionism, materialism, etc. Although materialism is, in fact, extremely implausible (for one thing, it denies the existence of the very entity constructing the theory!) and certainly requires as much if not more justification than any other theory of reality, it seems to be considered by its adherents today as self-evident and not requiring explanation. Further, the general “intelligentsia” who do not actually think philosophically or examine their assumptions accept this position simply because it is the outlook of the age. The present discussion will, for brevity, assume an idealist position as understood. The reader who requires a refutation of materialism and an establishment of the idealist understanding may be referred to various works of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (when some people could still think) for this purpose.4

The idealistic premise or axiom that will, for purposes of this demonstration, be taken as granted is as follows. There are and can be no objects without subjects and no subjects without objects. The self or center of experience and its object-world are both aspects of a single reality of knowledge or experience. They are logically distinguishable, but cannot and do not occur separately, independently and in isolation. It is not meaningful to speak or think of an object or event existing without any subject to experience it.

This premise being granted, the conclusion of immortality of the soul follows simply: For the object or event of death to occur there must be a subject or self or mind or center of experience to experience it (we are here talking about an individual's actual experience of death, not an external observer merely having the sense experience of observing the destruction of an external body). For an object or event to be experienced, it must be experienced in its entirety, through its beginning, middle and end; otherwise it is not the object or event that is experienced, but another, different object or event partial with respect to the first one. In other words, the subject must be present and existent on both sides, so to speak, of the object or event. Thus, for the event of death to occur, for it to be meaningful to speak of an individual experiencing death, the soul or self or mind or center of experience must be present through or around or on both sides of the event and thus must be present or continue after the event of death. Since death by definition is the only event that can constitute the destruction or discontinuance of the soul, and since the soul must continue after death in order to actually experience it, however many times and in whatever intervals it occurs, the soul is immortal.

At this point, it may be objected, particularly by conventional Abrahamists, that while it has been proved that the soul is immortal, the fact of reincarnation has not been demonstrated—there could be only one occurrence of death and the soul may then just continue forever in the state following that. Here, it is necessary to observe that the whole discussion, and the whole matter of death, pertains only to the lowest realm of reality, the level of soul and individual souls or selves in space-time. At the level of the Divine Mind, there is only the one divine mind as the only subject with the real beings as the only object, distinguishable, but not separate to the extent of the realm of soul. There, there is neither time nor space, and only life, not death at all. Further, at the level of the Absolute itself, subject and object are not distinguishable at all, and there is only absolute unitary knowledge beyond even eternity, life, and being. At the level of soul that we are discussing, for individuated souls to exist as such in space-time, they must be associated in some sense with body and matter, not body or matter in a physical sense, but in the sense of experiencing a certain set of changing sense-perceptions with an apparently given means of perception. It is an inherent property of this realm that all things in it, the whole possible object-world of the soul, change and are subject to coming into being, existing for a while, and then decaying and being destroyed. This includes all possible 'body', all possible sets and means of sense-perceptions that a soul could have. (The soul itself is sort of amphibious—the lower soul changing with its objects, the higher soul remaining always unchanging and connected to or part of the higher realms.) Thus, as long as we remain in the realm where it is meaningful to speak of the lives and deaths of individual souls, it is not possible that a given soul could retain a given body or perception set indefinitely. Each body or perception set must eventually cease and other ones must arise, so each individuated soul must experience a series of bodies or perception sets and lives and births and deaths, so reincarnation is a fact. (The details of this process, the rise and fall of souls to higher and lower perception sets, and the means of a given soul escaping from individuation and the whole cycle to 'return' to the higher unified state are beyond the scope of this short demonstration.)

Thus, the immortality of the soul and the fact of reincarnation have been demonstrated. This a priori proof is far more reliable than any sort of attempt to ascertain the facts of such matters through allegedly empirical observation or appeal to revealed texts, which are, after all, just more sense phenomena appearing in the object-world of the soul itself and incapable of determining the structure of the actual overall unity of experience or knowledge that includes the mind or soul and its objects. This demonstration is, at least in substance if not in expression, not at all new, but goes back at least to the divine Plato. It has been stated here in the form of ordinary 'logical' reasoning and may, perhaps, be attacked at that level, but it is really intended as a contemplative experience based proof. Genuine spiritual understanding can only be attained by attempting the conjunction of the individual mind with the Divine Mind through contemplative asceticism. If you don't really know for sure what death is, then you don't, in fact, know what life is!





© 2010 by Eric S. Fallick. All rights reserved. platonicascetic (with) (Gee) mail (period) com




Notes

1 Reincarnation has been selected here as the most common and standard term at present for the process of repeated births and deaths. (Some systems, such as Buddhism, may object to the term and the use of the terms soul, self, etc.) Other terms are rebirth, transmigration, metempsychosis, metensomatosis, and gigul (Hebrew). Perhaps the best terms might be the Greek palingenesis and the Sanskrit punarbhava, both of which mean 'again-becoming'.

2 These include Platonism, Orphism, Pythagoreanism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Manichaeism, etc.

3 There are notable exceptions. For example, the Jewish mystical systems of Kabbalah and Hasidism (and likely Hellenic Judaism) include reincarnation in some form, as does the philosophical system of J. Ellis McTaggart.

4 Here are just a few examples:

John Caird, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1901
George Plimpton Adams, Idealism and the Modern Age, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919
Viscount Haldane, Human Experience: A Study of Its Structure, NY: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1926
F. H. Cleobury, God, Man and the Absolute, London: Hutchinson & Co., (no date—late 1940's).

Q. and A.'s, including beginning meditation instructions

Q. and A. on A Mother's Death and Destinations of Rebirth


Q. I have another question to ask if I may.... my mother passed away, and this is why I like "rebirth" with the idea in mind that I'll see her again (hopefully if she is a angel in heaven!) What does Platonic metaphysics say of worlds like heavens? I remember asking another ("alleged") Platonist regarding I think the 32 realms found in Buddhism and he said something along the lines of "there are no planes, there is only wisdom and agnosis". I remember asking him about Plato when he talked of realms, asking if they were literal, he said he (talking of Plato) was literal. So now I'm puzzled.
A. I will try to answer your question according to my understanding, which I make no claim to be that of anyone else. Rebirth and reincarnation is, of course, quite literally true. There is, however, as I have tried to indicate in my previous replies, no independent physical world, only experience, only Mind, and, thus, no fixed 'geography' or 'topography' of places of rebirth. At this lowest level of individuated sensate existence in space-time, all manner of rebirths, within the limits of the laws of this level, are possible according to the karma of each individual soul. Some of these may bear some resemblance to the typologies given in various traditions and texts, but many are possible--all just relative individuated experiences at the level of soul, all just to be transcended. Your mother has no doubt been reborn with the experiential set of circumstances dictated by her karma and the Law of the All, but I can't say what that is. Whether you ever encounter her again sometime during the long weary round of rebirth throughout the long dark night of time depends on your mutual karmas, and again we can't say now. Even if you did somehow meet again, it probably isn't likely that you (or she) would know it or recognize each other in relation to the particular relationship of mother-son in this birth. In any case, it is not a goal to be wished for. I'm sorry that you are grieved at the loss of your mother, but, if I may gently and respectfully point out, the idea of spiritual practice and metaphysical understanding is not to assuage worldly grief or cater to worldly desires and attachments, but to gain a broader perspective on these things and free oneself from emotional attachment to the things of this world and, ultimately, from this world and the level of soul and individuated sensate existence in space-time altogether. You have had and have lost countless mothers in the past through countless rebirths--now is the time to start striving to get free of the whole mess altogether!
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Q. and A. on Beginning Meditation Practice

Q. I would like to start a meditation practice as you recommended. What are the steps?
A. It's great that you would like to start a meditation/contemplation practice. Again, please read carefully my essay THE PRACTICE OF CONTEMPLATION, also, there are a couple of preliminary meditations mentioned in MEDITATION FOR WORLDLINGS (though, of course, you are not a worldling!). Half an hour twice every day might be good to start--at regular times/on a regular schedule is best. The best time for meditation/contemplation practice, as universally agreed upon by all the contemplative ascetic systems, is upon arising very early in the morning. It is good to get into an 'early to bed, early to rise' regular routine, going to bed and getting up early to meditate at the same time every day. (From the time stamp of your emails, it looks like this might be a big change and reversal for you and could take a lot of getting used to, but I think you would eventually find it good and rewarding and good for discipline.) When you go to meditate, sit up straight on a firm/hard chair or, if you prefer, cross-legged on the floor. (I sit on the floor in the 'quarter-lotus' position, as I have for so many years. I get up, and have for more than thirty years, at 4:30 AM and meditate for two hours from about 5 to 7 AM. I also meditate for at least another hour later in the day--at a time depending on my work schedule. I go to sleep around 9:30 PM, but also take a nap at some point during the day, again depending on my work schedule.) Close your eyes and rest your hands either on your lap or on your knees. If you like, you could repeat one of your aphorisms mentally several times to settle down. Then, pick one Platonic Form/Idea and focus and concentrate and think on it continuously to the exclusion of all else--even though at first and probably for a very long time you won't be able to actually touch the Form itself. If one particular Form--such as beauty, sophrosune, dikaiosune, the ideal sage, or whatever--especially appeals to you, you may use that. Or, to start, you could just take the Form/Idea of 'triangle-in-itself'. Just try to continually think on/of and contact the Idea of triangle per se--not a visual or other sensory image, not any particular kind of triangle, but just the very intelligible notion of a triangle before any specific sensory experience of a triangle or any specific type of triangle, as all sensible triangles must be, but triangle-in-itself is not. Your mind and thoughts will almost immediately and constantly go off onto something else and into thinking about all sorts of things (not even necessarily wholesome!), but just keep continually gently bringing it back to the Idea/Form over and over again--you will do this countless times even just in half an hour! It is very difficult and takes a long time, so don't be discouraged, just keep going on and steadily working--it is most essential and rewarding, so just stick with it patiently whatever the difficulties or seeming lack of results.
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Q. and A. on Recollection

Q. Therefore intelligence does not depend upon sense perception, being independent from it, but sense perception does depend upon intelligence. This would be a rejection of scientism, which constantly says to man "Your mind is just a neurological process." I do not pretend to fully understand how knowledge can be remembrance. I would like your help understanding it

A. You are right that "intelligence does not depend on sense perception...but sense perception does depend on intelligence", and, with long and dedicated practice, you will experience and know this directly for yourself in the contemplation practice described above. This is indeed a complete rejection of scientism, which, unfortunately, is all around us in this darkest of times, even though it is the most deluded of views (to me, at least, it is quite scary being in such an environment, surrounded by mad beings going the exact opposite way from that in which we are going!). We could correspond about/discuss this more sometime, but, very briefly, the idea of empirical knowledge being recollection (or, actually, true non-empirical knowledge) is related to all this. In creating or experiencing sense perception and relative experience in space-time, the soul creates and organizes its experience based on its true knowledge of the Forms/Ideas that it had, even if unaware of it, from its being from and still in its higher part in contact with Nous. Otherwise, there couldn't be coherent relative experience at all--a mass of sensations per se is meaningless. To take the example given above, the soul has the innate knowledge eternally of triangle-in-itself. No sensory triangle as perceived by sense perception in this world is really a true and perfect and complete triangle and the true idea of triangle can't be derived from any sensory triangle. Perceiving, however, the imperfect phantom copies of one or more triangles in the sensory world, the soul refers these perceptions and sensory data to the Idea of triangle-in-itself that it innately possesses and is reminded of this Idea that it was previously no longer aware of, had 'forgotten', and uses this Idea to construct and organize the experience of a relative sensory triangle, which would otherwise be impossible--disorganized sense impressions being meaningless and impossible in themselves. Thus, 'knowledge' at a relative empirical level of empirical sensory triangles and what they are is really recollection of the absolute Idea of triangle-in-itself that the soul has always had but not recalled to the lower conscious level. (And, in fact, even the sensory experience is from the beginning a projection of soul (ours and the world-soul) of the Idea from the level of Nous, so the whole process is really remembering from beginning to end.)

Traditional Sexual Morality (Ascetic Perspective)

Traditional Sexual Morality

by Eric S. Fallick


“...but which things make not a small difference, and are hard to persuade about,
are especially the work of a god, if somehow it were possible for injunctions themselves
to come to be from that (god), but now there is likely to be need of some daring steadfast
person who, exceptionally honoring frankness of speech, will say the things seeming to be
best for a polis and citizens, among corrupted souls enjoining the fitting and pursuant
thing for the whole constitution, saying things opposite to the greatest desires, and not having
any person helping, alone following understanding alone.”

Plato, Laws, 835c



Sexual desire, in its broadest and most comprehensive sense and in all respects, including romantic love, is one of the principal things that binds us to the wheel of birth and death and repeated reincarnation and misery. It is the love and desire of the soul turned completely the wrong way, turned totally away from the Divine, the soul's true desire and love, and turned completely to becoming and sensate existence. It moves us further and further, only and always, into becoming and delusion and suffering and defilement, and further and further away from the Divine Absolute and re-union therewith and release from transmigration and individuated sensate existence in space-time. Complete celibacy, again, in its fullest and truest sense, and abstinence from any and all sexual activity whatsoever is required without question to tread the Path to freedom, release from becoming and divine union. It is an absolute ultimate soteriological necessity. It is an uncompromising requisite to even truly begin the Path and practice of true contemplation of the higher hypostases and to progress along it. At the end, at the telos, sexual desire in all its manifestations is, and must be, completely destroyed and eliminated. The true philosophos, the true Platonic contemplative ascetic and renunciant, clearly and intimately understands this and practices it to the best of his ability. Of course, he is in no sense free from sexual desire, this occurs only in accomplishment of the Path, and struggles with it constantly, but he always and without question maintains his physical celibacy and never willingly indulges his sexual desire in any way. Not being cloistered, he struggles continually with restraining his eyes and thoughts, and is always failing, but would never dream of compromising or abandoning his celibacy or of thinking or acting like an ordinary deluded worldling, and always picks up the battle again as soon as he realizes a slip of the eye or mind. The true philosophos, the true Platonist contemplative ascetic and renunciant, always views things from a transmigratory perspective and from an understanding of the actual spiritual nature and working of Reality, not from the superficial perspectives of the sense world and of worldlings. He is a stranger and alien in this world, always directed in every moment to transcending it and ascending to the Divine. He views the world and worldlings and their pursuits from apart, as a lonely outsider, looking down on this world and life from a transcendent, divine and metaphysical perspective and understanding. This is very much the case with the realm of sexuality and worldly love that so preoccupies the world and ordinary worldlings, to the horrible corruption and bondage of their souls and their continued re-becoming.

The real Platonic ascetics, the philosophoi, are, however, even in the best of times, let alone now in these darkest times, always very few. Real and full renunciants truly striving for release from the cycle of birth and death, genesis, and for divine re-union and actually knowing how to do so are rare and lonely outsiders in this world. This Path is not for the many (as upsetting as this may be to many in this democratic, egalitarian, relativist, naturalist age which denies the natural and divine spiritual hierarchy and won't accept, in the spiritual realm, that any way of life or practice or understanding is better than another and relentlessly works to level everything and everyone to the lowest common denominator). So what for the rest? The second and next best approximation, and which is a very good step indeed in a given birth and is to be greatly respected and admired and welcomed in fellowship, is a celibate religious vocation, clerical or monastic, eremitical or cenobitical, within one of the institutionalized religious traditions or systems—Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Jainism, Daoism, etc. This, of course, involves taking on the burden and tie to this world and becoming of a muthos, historicity, understanding of spiritual reality through religious symbols and doctrines, limited and approximate spiritual and metaphysical understanding and praxis, and, usually, at least some amount of institutional and administrative structure and forms and involvement, in contrast to the direct, correct and unmediated understanding and practice of the Platonic contemplative ascetic or philosophos—a burden that sometime in a future birth along the Path will have to be shed—but is nonetheless greatly to be encouraged and applauded and stood shoulder to shoulder with.

In better and more traditional times, and even until the middle of the twentieth century, many, though still, of course, a, usually small, minority, did follow, though, of course, with very varying degrees of sincerity and true vocation and practice, this Way of the celibate religious vocation within the various systems. Now, however, in this ever more deluded secular, naturalist, materialist, post-sexual revolution brave new world, hardly anyone, or very few, are willing or want to follow even this second level celibate religious vocation Way—celibate ascetics and renunciants and religious of any type as a whole are an endangered species. So what about the many, most people, the vast majority even in the best times and almost everyone now? Here we take a much greater quantum leap downwards from the distance between the first two levels of celibate religious ascetics above, to the third level approximation for the many. This third level is the farthest we can go from and the most distant acceptable approximation to actual spiritual reality and practice and understanding and the way things are, as shocking as this may be to the present day. This, the law for the many, the nonnegotiable moral and spiritual standard for the masses and majority of people, is traditional sexual morality: that the only legitimate, lawful, acceptable, allowable, divinely sanctioned form of sexual activity is heterosexual intercourse in an indissoluble monogamous traditional marriage between a man and a woman in the context of the family and procreation. Everything else is proscribed—non- and extra-marital sex, homosexuality, sodomy, masturbation, transgenderism, etc., etc.--everything else. “What!” cry the modern naturalists and the masses that follow them, “Impossible, ridiculous, bigoted, discriminatory, authoritarian, the unenlightened relic of a bygone age, regressive puritanism!” Remember that the present day is the darkest and most deluded age in at least the last 25 or 30 centuries (at least since the 'axial age'). This is the nadir, not the zenith, of human history and development. In most all better, wiser times, in traditional societies more in tune with actual spiritual reality, this traditional sexual morality was, in general, the standard. Of course, always, many honored it more in the breach than the observance, but it was still the officially accepted and respected position, originated by those who understood the true spiritual welfare of the populace and what was truly most helpful to them. It is, in fact, quite possible for most people to observe this traditional sexual morality when it is clearly and definitely understood to be the inviolable norm and is strongly supported by the sanctions of society and culture and religion. Good, decent people did generally observe it for many centuries, even up until the mid-20th century. Just because one has desires, however strong, doesn't mean one has to act on them. Indulgence in sensual desire only strengthens it and begets more desire. Restraint and discipline becomes habitual and lessens desire and makes it more manageable. As the divine Plato points out, it is the acceptability and indulgence in unlawful forms of sexual activity that increases the desire for them. Just as moral people are generally not tempted by and are repelled from incest and other forms of sexuality that everyone considers unholy and morally repugnant, so when this traditional sexual morality is the universally honored norm and everything else is considered unholy and repugnant, it is possible and easier for people to reduce and restrain and abstain from their other sexual desires outside of the acceptable, lawful channel. This is greatly to their spiritual and ultimate and genuine benefit in that as far as they restrain their sexuality and sexual desires and limit their sexual activity to the sanctioned form, to that extent are they in accord with actual divine spiritual reality and are moving slowly towards freedom. On the other hand, to the extent that they freely indulge and increase their sexual appetites of various sorts, the more they move deeper into becoming and bondage and create karma binding themselves ever tighter to the wheel of birth and death. This, of course, requires the turning away from the naturalist, materialist and post-sexual revolution dogma that is the dominant weltanschauung of the present day and is enforced by the institutions of society. But this dogma is actually totally implausible and illogical and is easily refuted—it is only its current prevalence and official enforcement and all pervasiveness that makes it seem plausible and accepted unquestioningly by most people. For most people, re-acceptance of this traditional sexual morality will require acceptance of the muthos of their particular religion that this sexual morality is revealed divine law or the revelation through the superknowledge of the founders or sages of their tradition and that violation of it incurs divine penalty, but this is certainly much truer and closer, if symbolically expressed, to the truth and spiritual reality than the modern naturalist myth and misunderstanding that actually has no connection to Reality whatsoever. For a few, understanding of the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual reality underlying the injunction to traditional sexual morality will be possible. Even when people do violate the standard, as they still often will, they will be ashamed and know that they are acting non-optimally, which will conduce to their spiritual benefit and ultimate progress in passing through the round of reincarnations. Those who still feel that their desires are absolutely homosexual or otherwise not possible to channel into the acceptable avenue can rejoice in that they have an unequivocal call, therefore, to holy celibacy and complete continence and the religious life.

The only thing that determines the well-being of a person is the closeness or distance of the soul from the Good or the One. Sexual desire, sexuality and sexual activity pulls the soul away from the Good and rivets it to this body and this world and binds it to misery and endless reincarnation. Restraint of sexual desire and continence in the context of a spiritual life moves the soul towards the Good and release from the cycle of birth and death. For the many who aren't going to follow the way of a celibate ascetic renunciant life, the only acceptable alternative is the traditional sexual morality of limitation of sexual activity exclusively to traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage. The sexual revolution and the naturalist worldview that spawned it is wholly pernicious and one of the greatest calamities of human history. (One wonders if Wilhelm Reich has much chance of ever obtaining another human rebirth anytime soon.) A return to a real spiritual weltanschauung and hierarchy and traditional sexual morality and respect for the celibate religious vocation is the only hope for the soul of the modern world.



© 2016 Eric S. Fallick

Letter to a Modern Secular Materialist Positivist Skeptic

Letter to a Modern Secular Materialist Positivist Skeptic

by Eric S. Fallick


You are unwilling to adopt a definite spiritual understanding and contemplative ascetic life and practice because you think that you don't have direct empirical evidence or personal experience to know their truth. You don't realize that you are already full of undemonstrated beliefs, that it is impossible to operate without a belief structure, that you have to stand somewhere. Through lack of philosophical understanding, you have simply adopted without question or conscious awareness the most dubious and undemonstrable belief structure of the modern world and scientism that holds that only the things of the senses and individual subjective experience are actual and positively demonstrable, while actually it can be shown that these are the least reliable. This is most unfortunate, but perhaps not surprising since this is the attitude and environment all around you and is most insidious in presenting itself as self-evident rather than another most questionable belief structure and actually denies the validity of metaphysics while not realizing that it is, in fact, just based on another and unquestioned, but illogical, metaphysics—that of materialism, positivism, naturalism, sensationalism, etc. Ultimately, however, this is due to your own heavy karma and deep rooted delusion, which has resulted in both the circumstances of your present birth and, more particularly, your accepting the belief structure of the modern world around you and your inability to shift to a truer structure and your ongoing doubts and skepticism. Since, however, this is how you feel, let's see what your own personal, positivistically evident experience actually tells you.

Here is something you know directly for yourself from your own experience: You will die. Whether in five minutes or sixty years, you will die. You obviously know this to be the case since you don't know or have ever heard of anyone who hasn't or doesn't die. You also know directly from your own experience that nothing in the spatio-temporal sense world, no sense-perceptible thing, is permanent and lasts—everything perishes after a (relatively short!) time and disappears. You know this since you have never seen and can't think of any sense-perceptible or phenomenal thing that lasts forever. Thus, since you know that you will die and that everything in this world will pass away, you know that there is nothing you can pursue in this world that you can keep and have for more than a very short time and that you will have to leave everything behind at death. People, family, friends, wives, children, possessions, pleasures, worldly knowledge, etc., etc.—you can't keep anything. This you know yourself to be the case. Therefore, the only logical and reasonable thing to do under such a circumstance is to renounce and give up all these things that you can't keep and seek for something that is permanent and can give lasting satisfaction. What is there that you know from your own direct experience that is constant? Where can you look from your own experience for something permanent? In fact, it is the fact of experience itself, the soul or spirit or subject that experiences impermanence and all the passing phenomena, including the phenomena of body and mind. This must stand outside the space-time frame or it would not be possible to know of or experience the passing variety and series of spatio-temporal phenomena. Experience itself per se, the soul/spirit/subject must continue the same for any particular changing experiences to be possible at all. Thus, though you don't realize it, you really know directly for yourself from your own experience the fact of rebirth/reincarnation since otherwise it wouldn't be possible for you to know the experience of death. Since the soul/spirit/experience itself is the only thing that you have and have direct personal experience of that could possibly last beyond your death (which is coming very soon—a whole long lifetime of 100 years is only an instant compared to the whole of time), the only at all sane occupation of your life would be the purification and extrication of your soul from the impermanent, imperishable space-time world and objects. Thus, it seems to me, you actually already have the essential framework of the Indo-hellenistic spiritual systems and practice as a matter of your direct personal experience and the decision to become a renunciant/contemplative ascetic devoted to meditation, study, striving for liberation, etc. is already made for you as a matter of your direct personal experience.

Now, at this point, with your doubting mind, you might say, “OK, now I know from my own experience the facts of the immortality of the soul, the cycle of reincarnation and the logical desirability of release from this, but how do I know that there is actually something else besides this endless cycle of rebirth and that I can attain to it and attain release and thereby should exert the effort to do so?” From your own personal experience, you know that experience consists not only of your own self or soul, of the subject only, but also that there are objects of experience and that other souls are included in your own experience—that you experience the existence of other souls and of objects of experience, that you know yourself as bounded, with other selves and things beyond this boundary. This would not be possible if there were not another greater overarching mind that experiences the whole and with which you are connected and in which you are rooted, that goes beyond the boundaries and lets you experience beyond your own boundaries and, to a limited extent, the whole. Further, you know from your own experience that your knowledge is limited and imperfect and that you can err. You would not be able to recognize limited and imperfect knowledge and error unless there were a standard and fact of complete perfect knowledge and truth to compare it to greater than your own limited knowledge and unless you were in some way in contact with and rooted in it. Knowledge must exist in and for a mind. Thus, there must be a greater, all complete, all encompassing, true, unerring mind that you have contact with and that provides the standards by which you know that your own knowledge may be incomplete, imperfect or erroneous. Thus, you also know from your own personal experience that there is an Absolute, an Absolute Mind, greater than yourself outside of the limited time-space world of rebirth and finite experience and that you are already somehow and to some extent in contact with it. How do you know that you can attain union with this Absolute Mind and come yourself to be outside the finite world and cycle of rebirth? You know from your own personal experience that your own knowledge can become better and more complete and truer and you don't know and have never experienced a limit to this process. Since your own knowledge is by nature limited, your increase in truer and more complete knowledge and knowing that it is so can only come from gaining such knowledge from the complete true knowledge of the Absolute Mind, from greater contact with the Absolute Mind. The more complete and true your knowledge becomes, the more you have contact with the Absolute Mind, the more your knowledge resembles and is that of the Absolute Mind. When your knowledge would become coterminous with the complete knowledge of the Absolute Mind, there would be nothing left to distinguish you from the Absolute Mind, you would be the Absolute Mind. Thus, you know that it is possible to attain union with the Absolute Mind and come to be outside of birth and death.

Now, finally, you may doubt, “OK, I see that I have to logically grant all this, but how do I know for sure that contemplative asceticism is the way to this re-union and release? How do I know that meditation or contemplation is the method to accomplish this? Even if it is, how do I know that renunciation is necessary in order to do it?” You have already granted that the way to re-union and release is to merge your mind with the Absolute Mind, to make your mind coextensive with the Absolute Mind. How else is this to be accomplished but in formal contemplation or meditation, along with ancillary study? Contemplation is the very practice of consciously and continuously exerting your soul to come into contact with, be filled by, receive knowledge from and merge with the Absolute Mind. This obviously requires the formal sitting practice of contemplation in which you attempt to free your mind from other content and concerns to fill it from the Divine Mind. How else could your soul receive the impress of the Divine Mind if it is not trying, at least for the period of contemplation, to be free from the content and impresses of the limited sense world? Your mind or soul cannot be directed in two opposite ways and be filled with two mutually conflicting contents at the same time! Thus, it is clear that formal contemplation practice is the necessary way—though, of course, it needs to be informed by a proper understanding gained through study and reflection so that you know what you are doing. It is also obvious, upon even a little reflection, and logical that this requires full world renunciation and asceticism to such an extent as is possible. First of all, even a little beginning effort will show you empirically that this is a most, in fact, supremely difficult and lengthy task. It clearly requires all the time and energy you can give to it. How could you possibly devote such necessary effort to the spiritual path while still occupied with pursuing and indulging in worldly desires and pursuits—sex, relationships, family, career ambitions, entertainments, fancy food and drink for pleasure, hobbies, literature, activism, news, etc., etc.—all of which require much time and energy and thought and take all this away from contemplative practice and study, which, it should be obvious, requires all the time, energy and effort you can muster if it is to be at all successful. How in the world, again, also, can you fill your mind and soul with all these things outside of contemplation and then expect to suddenly empty yourself of them in contemplation to receive the impress of the Absolute Mind? It would be like trying to put out a fire while at the same time stoking it with fuel and gasoline, or trying to erase a chalkboard at one end while continuing to write on it at an even greater rate at the other end, or trying to record a disk with two completely different and discordant sound sources at the same time! All worldly pursuits and desires and indulgences, as you can easily verify in a short time from your own experience if you try to practice contemplation without renunciation and ceasing from these worldly things, turn the soul completely towards becoming, which is the state of the finite soul, as is clear from the discussion above, instead of to being, which is the state of the Divine Mind that you are trying to attain to. Can it be any more obvious and logical, even just from your own experience and reflection, that you can't turn in two opposite directions at the same time? Thus, it is clear without doubt that contemplation, meditation, renunciation and asceticism are the Path and the only way to accomplish the goal that has appeared as incontrovertibly logically necessary even just on the basis of the personal experience that each person indubitably has, if they would only reflect on it.

So, there you have it. Even just on the basis of everyone's common human experience, the understanding is clear and the only possible reasonable way to proceed is manifest. Slough off your deluded modern physicalist conditioning, my friend, and rouse yourself from your positivist slumbers. Awaken the innate understanding and aspiration of your soul and get going full speed ahead on the Path to freedom from rebirth and sensate existence and misery. You have nothing to lose but your bondage and suffering and ignorance!


©2016 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (with) (Gee) mail (period) com

Anxiety Disorders and Platonic Asceticism

Anxiety Disorders and Platonic Asceticism

by Eric S. Fallick


You inquire, my fellow celibate renunciant ascetic, about anxiety disorders and depression and how a Platonist renunciant and ascetic may be able to deal with them better than ordinary worldlings. You mention about how some Stoic ideas and ways of thinking and also so-called Buddhist mindfulness practices have been adopted in some contemporary psychotherapy and wonder if Platonist principles could be similarly applied. You say you would like me to touch on these topics. I have also heard a little about psychotherapists adopting some Stoic ideas and, indeed, that cognitive therapy may actually have derived from that source (though I'm not sure). In any case, while they may use some of the Stoic principles and ideas, being modern secular psychology, they discard the values and spirituality and morality and discipline and such degree of asceticism as it has of Stoicism, which, while very much below Platonism, is, of course, its most important part. The use of so-called mindfulness for secular psychotherapy has little to do with actual Buddhism (and, in fact, as I have indicated, most of what presently goes on under the name of Buddhism also has little to do with actual Buddhism!), and, as I have mentioned before, I don't think that the whole popular 'mindfulness' practices have any valid metaphysical and spiritual basis.

I don't think I can, or ever will be able, to touch on anxiety disorders and depression as they relate to the many, to worldlings, to the masses of ordinary people. They live in a different world than we do. They are altogether mad from beginning to end and little in touch with reality. I can't even understand very well the worldlings whom I have to deal with all the time in earning a living, etc., etc.--I can only just observe their delusion. Their values are the opposite of ours and the things that they fear and desire are the opposite of us. Even with contemplative ascetics, I don't think I can say much about depression since that is not a problem for me and I haven't looked into it and since I don't have it it is not something I can learn about from introspection and experience. I can, however, speak about anxiety disorders as they pertain to sincere renunciants and contemplative ascetics. I myself, in fact, as I have mentioned in passing before, have an anxiety disorder, OCD, which runs in my family, but which in my case is caused by the frightfulness of the isolated circumstances that I have been in for so many years and which, in fact, you share (and, as I have mentioned before, also has to do with my Mahayana Buddhist and institutionalized Buddhist monastic karma from the past). Actually, anxiety disorders in general and OCD in particular seem to be something of an occupational hazard of contemplative ascetics and mystics, judging from the available records. For example, it is commonly reported in the records and teachings of the Christian mystics, and probably easier to find there only because of the kind of records and writings they kept. It is also common in the people I have known who have been interested in one degree or another in this Path--for example, both one. some of whose correspondence I have forwarded to you, and the long-time worldling householder, but supportive and interested, friend, who used to maintain eumaiosllc.com, but has now withdrawn so that it has gone defunct, have OCD, a hermit who I once knew had anxiety disorders, etc.

So maybe, if you are interested to hear, I can say a little about my own experience, which may help to answer somewhat your question about unique Platonic insights into the matter. Anxiety disorders are caused by fear. Fear with which we are not in contact, so to speak, or aware of or dealing with directly builds up and comes out as the anxiety disorder and its symptoms. What I fear, though, is not even on the radar screen of ordinary worldly people and vice versa. I try to directly face and acknowledge and deal with my fears, but, despite continued efforts, I am not able to alter the fearful situation and isolation in which I have been for so many years and can't always be focused on the fear when dealing all the time with the world and worldlings if I am to function. (Social isolation is also well known to cause fear and anxiety--and that is, of course, the situation that we both find ourselves in, alone without fellow travelers who understand us and to whom we can talk as equals freely.) The only thing that I really fear is not attaining the telos, being separated from the One, continued reincarnation in individuated sensate existence in space-time. For many years and currently, I have only been surrounded by and always only in contact with and forced to deal with as equals (even though they are not) and dependent on for my physical survival and necessary human contact only ordinary deluded worldlings going the exact opposite way of me deeper and deeper and further and further into birth and death and away from the Good. I have felt and do feel like the only sane person in an insane asylum, and this, just as being a human being, generates much fear of being pulled from the Path or ruined by these foolish people. Actually, many people have told me that no one else (except you and maybe a few others!) could do what I have done and continue to do and that I am actually very brave. Various people from my Catholic priest turned semi-contemplative monastic friend to health professionals have told me that this circumstance is enough to make anyone have an anxiety disorder and have to take an SSRI. This, perhaps, can be understood by many, even ordinary, people, at least by analogy and the basic principles of human psychology. The other aspect of my fear can only, though, be understood by somewhat accomplished contemplative ascetics. When one touches, even a little, the Good or the One, and even only Nous, in contemplation, it is the most wonderful thing imaginable and sensate existence appears as in itself the most horrible thing imaginable. To briefly have this experience in contemplation and then have to return to the ordinary sense world--and many times worse, to the totally unsupportive and adverse environment in which we both live without anyone who understands--causes great 'separation anxiety' and is very frightful in itself. In all this, however, it is only the lower self, of course, that is experiencing all this fear and anxiety disorder as a result of karma. The higher self is still in touch at some level with the unchanging higher hypostases, and it is turning to this that I ultimately have to strive to deal with the fear. I have to try to remember that my understanding and direction and determination in the Path, which I have maintained and ever strengthened for many years despite being all alone with no support whatsoever of any kind, comes from the Absolute within me and isn't dependent on external things and won't be destroyed by the crazy people and world around me. I have to remember that everything actually works by karma and I am not actually so dependent for having circumstances in which to survive and pursue the Path on mad people who would love to pull me off the Way. I have to keep practicing until the vision of the Good is clear enough that I have the gut level, as well as conceptual level, understanding and confidence that I have progressed far enough that it is certain that I will eventually attain re-union with the One and can never be separated with it, in which case I can bear anything else that happens. I know all this in the higher self at the core of my being, despite all the travail that the lower self is continually going through in working through this karma and circumstances and fear, which is, I guess, why I am and have been able to do it while others can't or don't even know that they have to. I could go on and on, but this is already getting quite lengthy, and hopefully has shed at least a little light on your questions and shown a little that, yes, as you say, the spiritual are able to understand and manage these problems differently than the worldly and are superior in that regard.

As I said, I am not in a position to speak about depression, but I suspect that depression stands in the same relation and dynamics to anger as anxiety disorders do to fear. I would not want to see Platonism profaned by trying to use it for or as a psychotherapy or a basis for such. Nor do I think such a thing is even possible. Philosophia, Platonism, is most transcendent and, like it or not, beyond the reach of, not suitable for or for, the many (including or especially psychologists and psychiatrists!) and cannot be approached or even really understood by them. Platonism cannot be turned to mundane, worldly ends including helping ordinary people be healthy, wealthy and wise and pursue their worldly desires more effectively and comfortably through psychotherapy. It cannot be divorced from values that are not acceptable to secular psychology and psychotherapy and it doesn't have the kind of principles that can be isolated from their context and applied to profane ends. Iamblichus and Proclus and their followers did their best to destroy Platonism by making it a thing of this world, and an attempted Platonist psychotherapy would be some notches further below this. The Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Sufi and Jewish contemplative systems have already been destroyed in the modern world by trying to make them popular and for worldlings all and sundry, and some are already trying to do this with Platonism as well.


©2016 Eric S. Fallick

An Individual 'Benedict Option'

(This little piece was written for and submitted to a prestigious national magazine for online publication, but rejected. It was tailored specifically to their conservative Abrahamic and political orientation and interests and proclivities, though obviously not enough.)


An Individual 'Benedict Option'

by Eric S. Fallick

To all appearances, the modern world is becoming more secularized and deluded practically day by day. Traditional and absolute moral values and any sense of the transcendent are disappearing. Scientism, positivism, materialism and the like are the dominant 'religion', brooking no dissent, and a 'new totalitarianism' is spreading—one that is all the more insidious for the fact that it is based unconsciously on the most dubious and undemonstrable of metaphysical propositions, but thinks that it doesn't have a metaphysics and, in fact, denies the possibility of metaphysics at all. We live in a world that is the most inimical to any sort of genuine spirituality of probably any in at least the last 25 or 30 centuries. We are in the depths of the 'Kali Yuga', as it were, and there doesn't seem to be much likelihood of any reversal in the foreseeable future. Given this situation, I have seen that some traditional Christians have concluded that the battle for the soul of the modern world has been lost, at least for the time being, and that the only remaining alternative is a withdrawal into separate enclaves, this being referred to as the 'Benedict Option'.

Reading about this 'Benedict Option' was an opportunity for reflection on my own experience and situation. For more than three decades, I have lived and practiced alone as a single and solitary contemplative ascetic and renunciant incognito right in the middle of the most contemporary urban environments virtually without any kind of support at all of any kind—moral, spiritual, emotional, cognitive, financial, material or logistical. I have been celibate in the midst of sex-obsessed permissive, promiscuous and pornographic society; vegetarian and non-harming among flesh-eaters; teetotaling among drinkers and users of intoxicants; without a television or a car; unconcerned about the pleasures of food, drink and entertainment among those who know nothing else; concerned only about realizing union with the Divine Absolute and transcending this world among people who acknowledge only the realm of the senses and matter. Often, even basic physical survival has been tenuous in a Procrustean world that no longer has a place for renunciants and contemplatives outside of society. Great difficulties have presented themselves in such things as trying to rent housing without a credit history or much income, finding enough part-time employment to get by while not fitting the norms of society, and many other such things. Emotionally, I have had to endure crushing loneliness and the frightfulness of feeling like the only sane person in an insane asylum and being alone without fellow travelers or peers. I much sympathize with the loneliness and anxiety now felt by traditional Abrahamists, but the degree of support and company that they have seems, in comparison, downright luxurious.

In the end, what makes a person eudaimon or not is only the closeness or distance of the individual soul from the One, the Good, the Absolute, God. This doesn't mean just doctrinal acquiescence, but rather actual approach to God in contemplation with striving for holiness, asceticism, renunciation, purity and wholehearted devotion in all one's life. This is certainly much easier, more pleasant and less frightening to pursue in a traditional, pre-modern, and supportive environment with the aid of fellow travelers. Its necessity, however, is not at all negated by the adverse conditions of the present day. The individual soul needs to turn from the things of the senses and this world to the transcendent Divine, to God, wholeheartedly and follow the Ancient Path of the communion of saints, however more difficult and unsupported this Way may be in this brave new secular materialist modern world. This is an individual 'Benedict Option' that each soul can implement right now, if only Providence lights the Way.


© 2015 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (with) (Gee) mail (period) com

Of Gurus and Godmen

Of Gurus and Godmen

by Eric S. Fallick


“Although no real teacher exists, for one who knows is at once emancipated,
yet no contradiction finds place here, because knowledge can arise through
an imagined teacher.”
The Vedanta Siddhantamuktavali of Prakasananda, tr. by
Arthur Venis, p. 142


Many spiritual and contemplative systems include the institution and idea of the guru, lama, Chan/Zen master, sheik, tzaddik and the like. This idea comprehends the notion of a spiritual teacher who is supposed to be fully accomplished, realized, “enlightened”, knowing everything about how things are and guiding students and to whom students or disciples are supposed to submit, follow, obey, serve, idolize, imitate and even worship. They are supposed to regard the guru (this term will henceforth be used as an umbrella term for all the different names and variations on the theme) as a god, God incarnate, a Buddha, having special direct access to God, etc. In these systems, it is considered that the student can't proceed or accomplish the goal of the system without the guru and is dependent on the guru for spiritual progress, and the guru often performs rituals of initiation, ordination, etc., and is even supposed to supply necessary blessings, protection and so forth, along with detailed instructions (often secret and revealed only to the sufficiently submissive and obedient initiate). This institution continues as present in many, if not most, of the meditation/mystical oriented spiritual systems extant in the modern world, including the modern West, however attenuated, diluted, degenerated, confused, ersatz and vestigial the extant traditions may be. Even in those systems that don't actually include the guru idea and institution, the masses of starry-eyed silly people regularly exalt spiritual teachers and clergy to this status, with or without the encouragement of the objects of their glorification, and altogether regardless of their actual spiritual development, of the whole notion of which the people are generally without a clue. Of course, the founders and early figures of the various systems are usually deified. This whole idea and institution is, I think, highly problematic, to say the least, and erroneous, both pragmatically and on fundamental spiritual and metaphysical principles and facts. Here, I would like to briefly consider some of these problems and errors.

First of all, the whole guru business is, to use Abrahamic terminology, a form of idolatry. The whole purpose and goal of contemplative spiritual practice is to attain realization of and re-union with the Absolute, the One, the Good, the Unconditioned, or, if you like, God. This is our Source and our End, the only thing that is truly real and perfect, the very Ground of our and all Being, the only thing worth pursuing, loving and being concerned with. This Alone requires, demands, and deserves our attention, allegiance, love, esteem and devotion. This Alone should be our only concern and the only thing we have in view, are concerned with and consider important and worth striving for and exerting ourselves about. To raise any teacher or person, living or dead, to the status of guru and, effectively or overtly, spiritual intercessor is to give to a sensory phenomenon in space-time the consideration, attention, devotion, etc. that is due only to the One. It is a crime against Reality and the nature of things, a dangerous distraction and diversion from the Path. Of course, one will be told in such systems that the guru is necessary for attaining the Absolute, but this is not true, as will be discussed further below. Though it is outside the scope of this essay, it may be mentioned in passing that the same charge of idolatry applies to religious institutions and churches in general, ordinations, credentials,
robes, costumes, rituals, ceremonies, etc. It is also another reminder that, contrary to the trend of the modern world and contemporary allegedly spiritual movements, renunciation, celibate asceticism, and whole-hearted world-denyingness are absolutely essential to and part and parcel of any real contemplative practice and higher spiritual life.

For many of the masses of people, the guru institution may serve as a convenient excuse for not actually doing the hard work of the Path oneself. They seem to think that devotion to the guru can substitute for actual spiritual practice and that the guru's alleged spiritual accomplishment will somehow rub off on them and they can become sort of parasitic on the guru's supposed condition. Of course, at any given time, very few people will ever actually tread the Path, which is so difficult, and even fewer attain, especially now when almost no one is willing to renounce the world or even understands the necessity of doing so, but there is no use in pretending that things are other than they are or looking for shortcuts. It is most important to understand what the Path actually is and entails, and if one is not doing it, to frankly acknowledge it and assess what one can and should do.

One of the important spiritual facts that the institution of gurus ignores is that it is not possible to mechanically reproduce great spiritual attainment (and, as will be discussed below, the finished person is no longer actually around to serve as a guru) generation after generation on a routine basis. (In fact, nothing in the spiritual Path can really ever be routinely produced mechanically guaranteed within a certain time frame by the simple application of spiritual technology.) True realization and the attaining of liberation is a rare and difficult thing not often met with and not always publicly announced, and it strains credulity to suppose so many lineages so readily and successfully replicating themselves over centuries. (There seems, however, to be a great overabundance of credulity at present when there are so many gurus continually arising and replicating themselves with great ease—much easier, in fact, than ever in the past even in their own traditions, when gurus are readily accepted as such even when their conduct and understanding indicates their falsity even to any even moderately informed spiritual understanding, and when certification as a spiritual teacher doesn't seem to require much more than sending in the requisite number of boxtops.)

The guru institution forms part of the authority obsession that characterizes the institutionalized religions and even their contemplative systems and traditions. The guru embodies the idea that one cannot find Truth oneself, that the Absolute is the possession of certain phenomenal, institutional, economic structures in the world complete with lineages, regalia, rituals, costumes, certifications, procedures, etc. who act as gatekeepers controlling access to the very Absolute within one's own soul as only available on their terms, that every understanding must conform to a body of lore and statements in the world, and that holiness itself is subject to approval by phenomenal institutions.

This is indicative of an even more fundamental spiritual and metaphysical error. It is absurd to maintain that realization of the transcendent Absolute is dependent upon certain institutionalized sensory phenomena in space-time, including a guru in a specific historical lineage, and that such realization can and must be certified and approved by specific sensory phenomena, i.e., the guru and tradition. (It is most important, however, to understand that realization of the Absolute does require, absolutely and without exception, full and true renunciation, asceticism, otherworldliness and complete purity of conduct and character. These are not phenomenal sensory institutes like those mentioned above, but the very fact and process of turning to the Good from the world. To realize the Good one must become like the Good. Contemplative asceticism and renunciation is the very manifestation and reflection of the Absolute in this world.)

There is yet a further fundamental metaphysical/spiritual flaw in the whole guru idea, which is based on more misunderstanding of the nature of Reality and the spiritual Path and on an erroneous realist metaphysic. When someone attains full realization of and union with the Absolute, when someone is finished, the world (including themselves) entirely ceases to exist for that person. Only the Absolute remains, and That is all that is known and experienced. No actual phenomenal interaction is possible between “a fully enlightened person” (to the extent that that phrase has actual meaning) as such and deluded souls remaining here in the lowest and least real level of Reality of individuated sensory existence in space-time. Thus, the very idea of an “enlightened” guru, Chan master, avatar, godman, Buddha, siddha, etc., etc. appearing and teaching in the world is an inherent contradiction and impossibility.

But how then are we to proceed? What about the wonderful spiritual texts that we use and rely on in our practice and that guide and awaken us? What about the other souls that we do learn from and interact with so valuably on the Path? Here it is important to remember the Platonic teaching that learning is really recollection. As we proceed on the Path and our karma lightens to a certain degree, the Absolute dimly manifests to us and certain texts and teachings appear in our experiential field according to our karma that remind us, to whatever extent, of how things really are and who we really are. For practical purposes it is necessary to consider these as having a certain supposedly historical origin, but in ultimate reality this is not the case. Each soul really has its own experiential field, but our experiential fields are modified by those of others and by that of the world soul according to our mutual karmas, and so beneficial interaction can occur and people and texts and teachings can appear as our karma requires it for advancing on the Path.

Leaving gurus and godmen to themselves and their foolish devotees, let us renounce the world entirely as best as we can and continuously earnestly strive forward for union with the Absolute and release from the cycle of birth and death with our whole hearts, minds and souls!

© 2014 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (gee) mail (dot) com

Meditation for Worldlings and Renunciation

Meditation for Worldlings

by Eric S. Fallick

In an earlier essay, The Practice of Contemplation, an outline was sketched of the path of the practice of contemplation/meditation leading to the ultimate goal of re-union with the Absolute and liberation from the cycle of birth and death. I hope that it was made clear therein that, contrary to popular belief, even among those who should know better, in the present day, this Path and real contemplation of ultimate soteriological value can only be practiced in reality by true celibate ascetics/renunciants (not to be confounded with membership in institutional monastic orders, ritual initiations, names and costumes, church affiliations, economic dependence on others, and other such things of this world). This should be obvious from spiritual and metaphysical principles, from the very nature of Reality and the very nature of the Path and Practice, not to mention so-called history and traditional texts and the records of the ancients, but what remains under the name of spirituality in these very dark times is thoroughly confused. Even, or, sadly, especially, those who are visible as advocates of contemplation these days take pride in abrogating the renunciant principles and teachings and examples of the past and claiming that everyone, every worldling with romantic/sexual relationships and activities, families, wealth, pursuit of worldly pleasures and occupations, engagement in entertainments, social action, etc., etc., can effectively practice meditation/contemplation and attain significant spiritual realization. (“You too can be a mystic in your spare time without changing or giving up anything! Yes, in only 20 minutes a day in the comfort of your own home while still living as an ordinary worldling enmired in becoming you can accomplish what the mystics and contemplatives of the past had to devote their whole lives to 100% renouncing the world completely in celibacy, poverty, abstinence, etc. with only a few attaining after many years of tremendous effort. Just cut out and send in the coupon below to be the first on your block...”) They even think that this is an advance of the present day and the modern world over the benighted spiritual past and proudly announce and emphasize that their contemplation systems, courses, institutes, etc. are for combining contemplative and active lives, contemplation and ordinary worldly lives, pleasures and pursuits. Even though they refer to and purport to read and study the great contemplatives and mystics of the past of their respective traditions, they seem to hear from them only what they want to hear and studiously ignore their central renunciant teachings. Even though they cite them as authorities, they seem to think they were actually fools since they benightedly advocate and practiced celibate renunciation and asceticism and total devotion, when now, as they claim, the same thing can be done in this supposedly advanced modern world by everyone (or at least those who can afford to attend a workshop or retreat or course or institute) with little effort and without renouncing or giving up or abstaining from anything.

Let it be stated clearly and unequivocally, as galling as it may be to this egalitarian age. The celibate renunciant, ascetic life and way is better than and spiritually superior to the life and way of worldings. It is absolutely and unquestionably necessary for and part and parcel of, permanently and for the whole Path from beginning to end, the real practice and attainment of genuine contemplation of ultimate soteriological value. Celibate, abstinent, vegetarian, teetotaling, otherworldly, world-denying, wholly devoted, contemplative asceticism and renunciation is the very reflection of the Absolute in this world, is of the very essence of any higher spiritual practice, and its necessity can never be abrogated for genuine ultimate spiritual and mystic experience. (Not to mention that it is infinitely more happy, satisfying and real than the worldly life!) It is the greatest tragedy of this modern brave new world that it has all but disappeared and been denied by false and confused understanding and, consequently, real experience and understanding of the Absolute has become all but inaccessible. The argument from the great spiritual texts of the 'past' won't be pursued further here. If people read the great texts of their systems with open eyes and minds and hearts, what I am saying will be obvious. If not, detailed and extensive explication of specific texts is a massive undertaking well beyond the scope of this essay. (Also, 'history' is not really real and empirical data is not an adequate basis for spiritual practice—but these are matters for another time.) To expound the matter thoroughly on the basis of spiritual and metaphysical principles would also be the matter for a whole volume, but it is perhaps worth saying a few very brief words here.

We find ourselves lost, to great pain, in individuated sensate existence in space-time apparently separated from the the Absolute, the Good, the One and wandering endlessly in the cycle of repeated birth and death. We have turned away from the Good and our original state of unity with It and pursued individuality and separated subject and objects running further and further into differentiation. If we wish to be free, to obtain liberation, re-union with the One, the ultimate soteric goal and release, we need to reverse the process and return to the Absolute. We can only go either one way or the other: either further and deeper into becoming and misery or back to the Good. We cannot go both ways at the same time. Our every volitional thought and action takes us in either one of the two directions, back to the One or further into endless becoming. Every time we pursue worldly desires and activities (beyond what is absolutely necessary for psycho-physical survival while we are still at this level), every time we pursue sensual pleasures, every time we give the senses and the body more credence than is absolutely necessary, we run further into differentiation, create more karma and misery and delusion, and bind ourselves tighter to becoming. (It is no use pretending, as people do nowadays, that one can somehow engage in these things “without attachment” and thereby avoid their consequences!) Every time we renounce the things and concerns and spirit of this world and the senses and worldly desires and pursuits and pleasures (truly, with a real supranatural motivation ultimately stemming from the true core of our being where it touches and really is the Absolute Itself, not just in form with covert worldly motives) and turn our souls to the Good, we move in the direction of returning to the Absolute and liberation. Our soul's nature is to love. We can either turn our love to the things of this world or to the Absolute, to God, if you like. We can't love both at the same time. The same force can't be directed in two opposing directions at the same time. To the extent that we love and pursue the things of this world and the senses, to that extent we don't love and turn to the Good, and vice versa. It is that simple—you have to choose one or the other—the matter cannot be finessed no matter how much confusion and sophistry latter day alleged spiritual writers, teachers, practitioners, etc. may employ!

Let us take just a few simple examples. Sexual activity is the exact opposite of contemplation/meditation. Perhaps more than anything else, it draws the soul the wrong way into the senses and becoming and the body and space-time and differentiation and bondage. Contemplation, on the other hand, is the exact opposite process of separating the soul from the body and sensate existence and turning it back to the Good. Thus, the two are completely incompatible, go in exact opposite directions, and it is more than obvious that celibacy (in the fullest sense of the word) is absolutely and indispensably necessary for the practice of genuine contemplation of ultimate soteriological value and liberation and genuine spiritual attainment. The same thing goes for romantic love in a broader sense along with its physical aspect. The same thing goes also for non-sexual love, in the worldly sense, and attachment to family, children, friends, creation, etc. To the extent that you love and are attached to anyone and anything in this world, any differentiated particular, to that extent you don't love and aren't attached to the Absolute, and can't effectively practice real contemplation. This, of course, extends down to everything including desire for the pleasures of food and drink and possessions, etc., all of which are insuperable opposites and obstacles to true contemplation. Further, engaging in entertainments such as movies, television, theater, novels, etc., not only moves in the opposite direction from real contemplation, but causes one to absorb the worldly passions and confused thoughts and desires presented therein and thereby moves one in the wrong direction even just cognitively.

Thus, it is clear and obvious that the real practice of contemplation and the pursuit of the ultimate soteric goal is a business for true celibate ascetics and renunciants only—as exactly opposite as this is to the trend of the times and however upset this fact may make people. But if an ordinary worldling is reading this who wants to pursue the spiritual life and practice, in some fashion at least, contemplation or meditation, if someone is reading this who is married or in a romantic relationship, has a family, etc., etc. etc., how are they to proceed? What can and should they do? The first thing is to accurately and honestly understand and assess and accept the situation as described above and in the various systems and cease from pretension and the delusions of grandeur promoted by present day expounders and strive for correct conceptual understanding. Next, one must be sure that one is following and observing at least the minimum spiritual standards of conduct that apply to everyone in the world: being a vegetarian, not drinking alcohol or using intoxicants, being faithful to one's monogamous romantic partner, never lying, cheating or stealing, etc. Then, one can remove however much of one's free time as one can in one's situation from the pursuit of sensual pleasures, entertainments, etc. and devote all that time to reading and study of the primary source texts of one's spiritual system (not the pabulum and falsities of modern writers, but the records of the ancients!). As to the actual period of formal sitting in meditation, rather than ineffectually pretending to practice (and, even worse, to attain!) methods aiming directly and immediately at the final goal of liberation or union, and certainly rather than practicing the presently popular practices of simply concentrating on sense data and bodily functions, of being in the “now”, that are actually anti-spiritual (by definition) and more likely to lead to rebirth as a shellfish or the like, I would like to suggest the pursuit of cognitive meditations leading to cognitive and conceptual changes, to changes in one's way of viewing the world, that are actually a form of contemplation (to change one's thinking, in a deep sense, is to change one's mode of being), such changes being a necessary prerequisite to raising the true aspiration for liberation and practice in a future birth as a renunciant and ascetic of the ultimate soteriological contemplation. At present, I would like to suggest just a few ideas of such cognitive meditations leading to a change of weltanschauung in two essential areas. The first area is in developing the attitude of renunciation, of realizing the unsatisfactoriness of the worldly and worldly life, of individuated sensate existence, and of the inconceivable wonderfulness of the Absolute, and the necessity and desirability of striving to move from one to the other. The other area is in adopting an idealist (in the philosophical sense) perspective, of realizing that all is mind, spirit or experience, that there is no physical world apart from experience of it by souls or minds, whether ours or the world's.

The exercises I would like to suggest for formal meditation practice during the formal sitting period are as follows:

1. During your meditation period, which presumably wouldn't be all that long, just continually and repeatedly reflect upon and consider the immeasurable greatness, perfection, unity, goodness, beauty, unchangingness, etc. of the Absolute, and, by contrast keep reflecting on the instability, pain, unsatisfactoriness, multiplicity, deceptiveness, imperfection, evil, etc. of the sense-world, sense-objects and the worldly desires you have always been pursuing. Keep maintaining and contrasting these two opposed reflections so that the One seems most desirable and the sense-world revolting.

2. Contemplative reading of Plato's Phaedo: Reread repeatedly the Phaedo slowly and carefully stopping to reflect on each thing that grabs you, particularly the more transcendent parts and as it provides a continuing reflection contrasting the sense-world and sense-objects and the body as highly problematic with the wisdom of the soul by itself contemplating the divine things by themselves. (To forestall any possible misunderstanding and confusion, let it be noted that the married Socrates of the dialog (along, in fact, with the entire frame story itself) is just an allegorical symbol, in Homeric fashion, unconcerned with a historical Socrates, and in no way contradicts the principles given above. Socrates represents the true or higher soul and the family that has a cameo appearance at the beginning and end represents the faculties of the lower or animal soul that the higher soul is forced to perfunctorily deal with while still in the prison of the body.)

3. Practice the meditation exercise given by Plotinus in Ch.2 of Ennead V.1 (p. 15 of Ennead V in the Loeb's translation by A. H. Armstrong published by Harvard University Press).

The first two of the above exercises are aimed at the first cognitive shift outlined above and the third exercise at the second cognitive shift. Additional practices along the same lines could be developed by each individual. Understand things as they really are and work as hard as you can under your circumstances. You have been wandering endlessly through countless births through the long dark night of time and becoming. It is high time to start waking up and start to cease being deluded by this world and the things and activities in it and by other worldlings!



©2015 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (gee) mail (dot) com

Seeing the Absolute You Must Entirely Renounce the Many

Don't Slay the Herds of the Sun:
Seeing the Absolute You Must Entirely Renounce the Many

by Eric S. Fallick


“The man, tell me of Muse, of many turns, who very much
wandered, when he had sacked the hallowed city of Troy.
And he saw the cities and knew the mind of many people,
and he certainly experienced many pains in his heart in the sea,
trying to achieve his soul and the return of his companions.
But not at all thus did he deliver the companions, even though much desiring it:
for they perished of themselves by their own blind follies,
fools, who devoured the cattle of Hyperion Helios:
but He took away from them the day of return.
Of these things, from somewhere at any rate, goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell us also.”

Odyssey, Book 1, lines 1-10

Directly from Divine Wisdom as an emanation of the Absolute into the relative let us learn
about the true contemplative ascetic, the renunciant, who both experiences many things on the Path of the soul
through many rebirths and has the perceptiveness to deal with them, who
had to wander through many more births and trials after he had already finally gained an
initial entry into the noetic realm, an initial breaking through sensate existence, and seen noetic
beauty. He had to pass through many states and worlds of relative experience and existence
and understand many relative manifestations of mind. He experienced many sufferings
traveling through the ocean of birth and death and individuated, sensate, material existence in
space and time trying to return his own soul to the source, but also trying to keep the lower soul
and faculties that actually belong only to the lower realm and have to be given up and
abandoned and destroyed for the true higher soul to return to the noetic realm and the One.
But, of course, he could not keep these and bring them with him, even though he blindly and
habitually kept wanting to. They were finally destroyed as a result of their own blind, relative
only nature, lower and valueless things only, that continued to grasp the many, the relative, even
while the higher soul was seeing and in contemplation of the Good, and thus were destroyed by
the very radiance and power of the One, because the true higher soul properly renounced them. May we please learn
about these things, in whatever order or piecemeal fashion we can, from the sources of divine wisdom, intelligence and
understanding that appear as a result of the divine order of things, according to our karma, that reflects the
emanation of the Absolute into this lowest order of existence.

There are various and many recurring themes in the Odyssey, an allegorical manual of contemplative ascetic practice over multiple rebirths which, like all true, genuine and real spiritual texts and systems, most staunchly and uncompromisingly teaches true, pure renunciation of the world, world-denying-ness and otherworldliness and puts these forth as of the essence of the Path. One of these themes is the destruction of Odysseus' ship and the death and loss of his remaining men as a result of their killing, and eating, the cattle of the Sun, Helios. This seems to be emphasized as of considerable or even special importance since it is the only one of Odysseus' trials and the only episode specifically mentioned in the very opening lines of the Odyssey. It is a central part of Teiresias' prophecy about how Odysseus can successfully return that Odyssey travels to Hades to learn in Book 11. It is also reiterated and repeated by Circe in her instructions in Book 12, and the incident actually occurs and is described in detail and the prophecy is fulfilled in Books 12 and 13. What is the meaning and significance of this and why is it so important?

At the beginning of his unerring prophecy in Book 11, Teiresias says:

“You seek for the honey-sweet return, illustrious Odysseus:
but a god will make it painfully burdensome for you: for I don't think
you will escape the notice of the Earthshaker, who has laid up resentment for you in his heart,
being wroth that you blinded his dear son.
But yet even so all of you may arrive back, experiencing evils indeed,
if you would be willing to restrain your heart and that of your companions,
when first you would bring your well-made ship to
the Thrinacian island, escaping from the violet-dark sea,
and all of you would find the cattle and goodly sheep
of Helios, who looks upon all things and hears all things.
If you let these be unharmed and have thought for your return,
even still you all may come to Ithaca experiencing evils indeed:
but if you harm them, then I indicate for you destruction,
both for your ship and your companions, but if you yourself at least would escape,
you will return late in straits, having lost all your companions,
in the ship of another: and you will find woes in your house...”

Odysseus, the true higher soul, is still trying to return to his true home in the noetic realm, to be reintegrated and reunited with Nous and the One, which, in truth, he has never really entirely left. He is still, however, encumbered by his lower self and soul and all the faculties, emotions, thoughts, etc. of embodiment and the body in the material realm, his ship and his men. He has to be painfully stripped of all this so that the higher soul can return alone, but he still doesn't realize this and hasn't given up attachment to the lower self and the things of embodiment and is still trying to bring them with him and thinks that he has to and that this is desirable. Actually, the higher soul as connected to the higher hypostases really knows that all the lower things must be given up and stripped away, but can't, at least at the surface level, clearly recognize this because of the obscuring functions of the lower self and body, emotions, etc. It is really the lower self that still wants to go along and the higher soul only as combined with it that suffers the pain of getting rid of the lower manifestations. Thus, Teiresias initially holds out the possibility of the return of the remaining lower self along with the higher soul if only all can be brought and held to the purest renunciation, even though it is already clear and fated, as it has been from the beginning, that the lower self must be entirely lost and destroyed and only the higher self will return alone. At this point in the narrative, Odysseus has already lost the numerical majority of his ships and men, the higher soul has already been much stripped of the animal soul, through the various preceding episodes. The numerically largest loss occurred in the episode of the Laestrygonian giants. The man-eating giants represent a clear view of the grossness, grotesqueness, horror and animality of sensuous material sensate existence, and seeing and recognizing this clearly in itself destroys much of the lower self and attachment to it and makes the higher soul want to purify itself and be alone. A similar meaning is found in the episode of the man-eating Cyclops, but with various differences and important additions and other aspects. Odysseus has already at this point blinded the Kukl-ops, the Circle-vision—the higher soul has destroyed the vision that only sees the circle or cycle of birth and death, of genesis, of samsara, of rebirth, of individuated sensate existence in space-time, of the senses using the burning bright stake of transcendent wisdom. Thus, at this point the renunciant contemplative ascetic can never really go entirely back to sleep. He can never really return to the standpoint and vision of the many deluded ordinary worldlings who only see and know the things of this world and are unaware of the transcendent and see things only from the horizontal standpoint of this life and not from a transmigratory and transcendent perspective. He can never really become an ordinary deluded worldling again, even if there may appear to be brief lapses, but must remain a renunciant striving until final liberation is attained. In doing this, however, he has brought down upon himself the wrath of the Earthshaker, Poseidon, the body and hyle, his remaining karma of embodiment that he has to work off and get rid of and will keep raging against him, against the higher soul and its return and its remaining lower self and causing much suffering until the return is finally accomplished, as it is already clearly destined that it eventually will and must be. He will eventually return to Ithaca, the higher soul will return to the higher hypostases alone without its gross attachments to the lower self, in the ship of another, using the vehicle of a system of spiritual practice to cross the ocean of becoming and hyle and body without the possessive attachment to it that characterizes his own ship of the body. He will then, though, find woes in his house, the defilements and passions are still there assaulting the remaining more subtle and needed for the remaining period of embodiment self, and must be destroyed, which long and difficult process occupies the whole second half of the Odyssey.

After leaving Circe, the circle of becoming, of genesis, of samsara, with whom he has had to abide intimately for a while to learn its ways and neutralize them and turn them to attaining liberation from the cycle itself, and after some additional notable episodes, he arrives at Thrinacia, the island of the sun. Before leaving Circe, he had to travel to Hades, the higher soul had to see this world and its inhabitants as the mere phantoms that they are, he had to see the prisoners in the cave who know only shadows as realities, he had to see that all the things, people, goals, strivings, supposed accomplishments and pleasures and sentiments and great people, etc. of this world are nothing, just meaningless shades, and hear instructions from the prophet Teiresias who is the only one who retains his mind there, the higher soul had to hear from and be reminded about the Path by the only voices in this phantom hell world that know and speak about the Path and the Truth, such as the records of Homer, Plato and Plotinus. Hyperion Helios, the Sun, who sees all and hears all, represents the Absolute, the One, the Good Itself. His immortal cattle and flocks of sheep and goddess herders are the lower hypostases and lower relative many realities that always exist, to the extent that they do, along with the One. Arriving at the sun's island is arriving at direct clear contemplation of the Absolute. The central point here is that true contemplation of and reunion with the Absolute requires the purest and most complete renunciation, contemplative asceticism, moral discipline and otherworldliness. This is of the very greatest importance if the soul is to succeed and not be destroyed. The more the Good is known, the higher the soul goes on the Path, the more complete and pure must the renunciation be. World-denyingness, renunciation and contemplative asceticism is not just a means or way station on the Path—it is of its very essence, is the very manifestation of the Absolute in this world and always remains getting purer and purer the more the One is known and the Way is traversed. To attain the One, one must give up the many. To get free from this world, one must renounce it in all its length and breadth. Only the true renunciant and contemplative ascetic can travel the Path successfully and know the One truly and without being destroyed. Real contemplation and renunciation, mysticism and asceticism always go together—they are flip sides of the same coin. This Truth is stated right at the beginning of the Odyssey, is explained by Teiresias, repeated by Circe, etc. and is a central theme running in various forms through the whole text.

Throughout the Odyssey, the horrible image of animal slaughter, sacrifice and consumption represents the need to dedicate, sacrifice and use the lower faculties and animal soul and their unavoidable necessary maintenance solely for the purpose of pursuing the Practice and Path in full renunciation, not for the purpose of sensual pleasure or worldly desires. It occurs constantly since, most unfortunately, as long as we have a body and its accompanying lower emotions, needs, etc., we have to constantly attend to it and provide for it, but always trying to dedicate it to divine purposes. The use of the image of sacrificing and eating animals and drinking wine (using the senses), so repulsive to the real vegetarian and teetotaling contemplative ascetic, is used by the vegetarian teetotaling Homer to continually generate revulsion towards material, animal existence and its needs and interference with contemplation and spiritual practice. Arriving at the island, Odysseus, the higher soul, recalls the instruction that in the actual period of contemplation and contact with the Absolute any, even the necessary normal, concern with the world and the body and its needs will be destructive. The eternally existing lower hypostases have to be entirely left alone and forsaken during the actual period of direct and intense contemplation of the Absolute and of Union, though they, alas, can't be ignored when returning to sensate existence until the telos is finally attained and sensate existence is ended completely and the soul has entirely re-become the One, but the proper understanding of renunciation must be retained all the time even so.

Thus, Odysseus, when entering the contemplation of the Good, remembers the instruction and wants to keep going and not attend to the needs of the body and the lower self at all. But they cannot be denied even then and so they have to pull into the island, but with the promise that the lower needs will be content with the minimum, the supplies they already have with them, and not kill the cattle and flocks of the Sun, won't pursue the things of the world and the lower hypostases more than necessary. But with time the lower needs become more importunate and Odysseus, the higher self, goes off alone to reach out to the divine, prays to the gods. They shed sleep upon him, he enters into a state of deep contemplation, of samadhi. Like in the Aeolus episode, while the higher soul is in this deep contemplation, the remaining undestroyed passions and defilements, now unrestrained by the higher self, break out and, in this case, take more care for this world and physical and emotional needs than is necessary, they kill the cattle, involve themselves with the lower hypostases, which during this contemplation need to be just ignored and left alone. This time, however, their folly calls forth the purifying power of the Absolute, which, through its emanation as the divine order in the lower hypostases, exposes the true nature of these grosser passions and defilements, helps the higher self know that they truly have to be left behind and destroys them and strips the higher self of them with the light of wisdom—Zeus destroys Odysseus' ship and men with the thunderbolt—leaving the higher soul alone to continue on with the further stages of the Path—with embodiment and more subtle and fundamental passions and defilements still not finished and much trial and pain and purification of renunciation still to come.

The soteriological necessity and wonderfulness of renunciation and celibate asceticism has almost been entirely forgotten in this ever darker modern world. There have always been sophists who, in their delusion and worldly desires, have claimed that renunciation isn't necessary or superior and that it is possible to practice contemplation and attain liberation as married or non-celibate or pursuing and enmired in worldly desires, but, in the past, in better times, the necessity and superiority of celibate asceticism was generally acknowledged, even if not followed. Now the sophists of worldly delusion have become the norm and reached new heights in their rationalizations and popular purveyors of meditation and contemplation and allegedly spiritual paths actually take pride in denying renunciation and claiming that the Path can be followed by all and sundry worldlings and that this is an advance over the benighted premodern world. This goes along with the deeply and almost entirely deluded and mistaken this-worldly, physicalist, etc. weltanschauung and thoughts (such as it thinks at all) of the modern world which has almost completely lost any sense of transcendence and the hierarchy of being. An analysis of this would, of course, be a volume and beyond the scope of this essay. Ultimately, of course, it has to do with the delusion and heavy karma of the souls inhabiting the modern world. Let us be grateful that we have the Teiresias of Homer to remind us of the necessity of pure renunciation and truly realizing the Absolute and transcending this world!

© 2016 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (with) (Gee) mail (period) com