The Reason for Asceticism

Q. I've read a few chapters of your book, and it has prompted me to think more about asceticism, attempting to answer the question: Why is asceticism important and even necessary for the moral and spiritual development of the person? In short, what is the reason for asceticism? 

At this stage, my understanding is that asceticism functions to counteract the cause of our corporeal existence. When the nous fell or broke from unity, there must have been some initial movement, creating the momentum to cause the nous to fall or precipitate from the Good to the lesser, temporal goods (and evils) of mortal and bodily existence. This initial movement was an act of carelessness or negligence with regard to the nous and its unity with the Good. The nous carelessly and negligently turned away from unity to multiplicity in order to pursue individuation, which divided the nous into nous, soul, and body. 

Asceticism is carefulness and thoughtfulness (the antithesis of negligence) functioning as a therapy or antidote or the application of justice to the careless and negligent movement of the nous away from the One, underpinning a process of purification via the instrument of the body that removes the passions from the soul, and allowing in turn for the recovery and return of the nous to unity. 

I was wondering if you could comment on this, confirm my understanding, or correct it in any way? 

A. Thank you for reading some of my book. I don't know if you have read or will get to some of the other essays that explain more of the reason for asceticism, though most of them do in one way or another, and also point out that asceticism is not just instrumental, but the very manifestation or reflection of the Good in this world. In the divine Plato, the Phaedo, especially, among the dialogs, gives extensively the rationale for asceticism, though parts of others do also, and much of the Enneads also explains this (in relation particularly to what you say, see, eg., the beginning of Ennead 5.1). 

I wouldn't say that what you say is incorrect, though I wouldn't say that it is the whole story. One thing I would 'correct', since you ask, is where you say "...purification via the instrument of the body...". I would say, rather, that asceticism is purification from the body, not using the body as an instrument, but rather having as little to do with it (and the sense world) as possible. As you indicate, the fall of the soul is from unity, the Good/One and Nous into cyclic individuated sensate existence in space-time, into the cycle of repeated reincarnation and sensory/bodily existence, and this we have to get free from and return to just being Nous and the One only. To do this, we have to turn the soul, and the whole soul, back around 180 degrees from looking and being in the direction of this lowest darkest least real level of multiplicity and individuated temporal-spatial quasi-existence to looking only at and being only in (and this is the only true being) Nous and the Good. Being involved with the body and the things of this world and pursuing the things of the senses and sensual pleasures and the things of this world of every kind and in every sense is exactly being in the fallen state and pursuing it further and running ever deeper into it and birth and death and looking towards and having the soul turned towards the darkness. Asceticism, having as little to do with the body and the sense world as possible, just doing the minimum necessary to keep the psycho-physical organism going until we can be rid of it, being unconcerned with sensual pleasures, dealing with and seeking only those things of this world minimally necessary for survival, and voluntarily being concerned only with the 

things of the soul and the divine, turning the whole soul as much as possible from the body and sense things to look at and strive for the higher hypostases, is this very process of turning from this fall into and state of becoming back to Nous and the One. This also points towards why I say that asceticism isn't just instrumental, isn't just a means that has to be justified. The highly accomplished contemplative, but who still is bearing his last body and not completely done yet until he is completely free from body, sensory experience, individuation, and being at all in this 'material' world and becoming, would be permanently turned back to Nous and the One except for such minimal attention as still being embodied for a while yet more requires for maintaining the remaining psychophysical existence, and couldn't give more attention to and be concerned with this world and especially sensual pleasures, possessions, etc., etc. than that even if he tried. Not being an ascetic would be not being a contemplative, would be being back in bondage, would be being back an ordinary worldling again. Contemplation and asceticism necessarily go together, are two aspects of the same process, two sides of one coin. Sensual and worldly indulgence and involvement is the exact opposite of contemplation and spiritual practice and moves the soul in the exact opposite direction. One, the soul, can only move in one direction at a time, so there is simply the choice of either pursuing sensual pleasures and worldly things and anti-contemplation and going deeper into bondage and binding oneself tighter to the wheel of birth and death, or renouncing this world and the things of this world and the senses and pursuing asceticism and contemplation hand in hand and going towards freedom from becoming and re-union with Nous and the One. 

I hope that this answers your request for comment a little. It could be a lot to go into in thorough detail and in all aspects. Incidentally, your question sort of reminded me a little of how completely different my way of looking at things, and that of true contemplative ascetics generally, if there are any now, is from that of the world and worldlings, especially now in this modern brave new world. Contemplative asceticism, renunciation, is the obvious necessity and fact and true way and only life that is really life--this seems so obvious and the reasons so clear that the rationale hardly needs to be rehearsed--the burden of proof would be on those who might claim that asceticism and renunciation isn't the way and for any worldlings who would attempt to justify their way, though it would, of course, be impossible for them to do so and they and their thoughts are not in any way in accord with Reality! 

Platonist Contemplative Asceticism in the Present Day

Platonist Contemplative Asceticism in the Present Day

By Eric S. Fallick

We find ourselves separated from the One, the Good and trapped in the cycle of repeated birth and death in individuated sensate existence in space-time, in genesis, in becoming, with all its attendant and intrinsic misery and pain. Under these circumstances, the only at all sane and joyful thing to do is to strive single-mindedly and exclusively, as much as possible, to attain release from the cycle of reincarnation, liberation, and re-union with the Good, to re-become the One. How is this to be done? There is only one way, that of thorough renunciation of the world and exclusive devotion to asceticism and contemplation, as incomprehensible and incredible and uncongenial as this may be to the deluded worldlings of this modern brave new world where the whole idea of true renunciation and contemplative asceticism has almost been completely lost and so few are left who really understand and are willing to follow the Path.

What does this renunciation and practice entail? There are some essential and indispensable minimum requirements. Celibacy, literally and completely and in its fullest and broadest sense, is a first requirement and dividing line from the worldly life. Essential also is vegetarianism, or, preferably, veganism. This includes not only not eating any animals or anything derived from animals, but also non-harming in all respects, including not wearing leather, not using any animal products, not killing insects, and, in general, not harming or killing any sentient beings at all, human or animal, in any way as much as possible. Also necessary is complete teetotalling or abstinence from alcohol or any other intoxicants or intoxicating non-medicinal drugs of any sort. Complete honesty in all one’s speech and dealings is, of course, necessary, as contrary as it actually runs to the way of the world. One also should not earn one’s living or gain necessary worldly survival items by any means that harms other beings physically, morally, or spiritually. Being completely devoted to spiritual practice, one should avoid attending worldly entertainments, watching television and movies, etc. One should also avoid attending worldly social events, engaging in idle worldly talk, etc. as much as possible in one’s individual circumstances. In general, the principle is to be totally and exclusively devoted to and engaged in spiritual practice and study, beyond what is minimally necessary to maintain this psycho-physical existence until we can be rid of it in final liberation, and to avoid all worldly things and activities and engagements. The individual needs to work out the exact details of what to do in each situation and in their own particular circumstances with understanding, sincerity, and discernment and in accordance with the essential principle of renunciation and the desire to be solely devoted to attaining release and re-union. An extensive or exhaustive list of individual detailed rules is unnecessary and ineffective and only leads to legalism and self-deception and obsessive-compulsiveness.

Established and continually further establishing oneself in full renunciation as the practice progresses, doing the best one can and always working for the renunciant ideal in accordance with the necessities of one’s circumstances and minimum psycho-physical survival, study and meditative reading is also an important and valuable part of the Path. The dialogues of Plato (starting with and especially the Phaedo) and the Enneads of Plotinus (and, allegorically understood, the Odyssey of Homer), supplemented by such works as the Dissertations of Maximus of Tyre, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, etc. are the principal texts for reading and study, but much can also be learned from the different texts of the different systems. In general, I think that wide study of and working knowledge of the different ascetic, renunciant, monastic, contemplative, and mystical spiritual systems of the world is quite helpful and useful, especially in the circumstances of the present time. To be able to read the essential texts in the original Ancient Greek, though a non-trivial endeavor to say the least, is also helpful as translations cannot be relied upon and are always missing something.
With renunciation and knowledge, one can devote oneself to the actual practice of formal sitting in contemplation. This is the central practice and focus of the contemplative ascetic and the core and thrust of the effort towards the One and out of becoming, and is how the contemplative ascetic spends the greater part of his time apart from all the necessary activities for psycho-physical survival. I have described Platonist contemplation practice in detail in The Practice of Contemplation and given beginning instructions in Q. and A.’s, including beginning meditation instructions. It is important to have a thorough knowledge and understanding of the practice of contemplation and of the texts on contemplation.

Hopefully, a reasonably clear picture has been given of the proper renunciant and contemplative ascetic life and what it entails. It is the life that is engaged with and involved with the world and worldly activities of any and every sort only to the minimum extent absolutely necessary to maintain the psycho-physical organism (and that always done only strictly in accord with the principles of morality, honesty, and non-harming) and totally and solely and sincerely devoted exclusively in intention and concern and, as much as possible, in deed to spiritual, ascetic, and contemplative practice to attain liberation from becoming and re-union with the One/Good. Something, however, more may be said about its practical implementation in the circumstances of the present day. People, as another symptom of becoming, genesis, and the delusion associated with it, tend to see renunciation and contemplative asceticism in terms of institutions, institutionalized monasticism, rituals, initiations, titles, uniforms, merit badges, etc. This is, of course, particularly the case in terms of organized, institutional cenobitical monasticism. Eremtical monasticism has always tended less in this direction, has usually been the original less structured form from which cenobitical monasticism has eventually evolved and has often later even been associated with a rejection of institutionalized forms and an attempt to return to original ideals, but the same tendencies tend to come in in people’s perceptions here also. In traditional societies, there has usually been at least some sort of niche or place and respect for renunciants and eremitical renunciants, but this is largely gone in the modern world. Platonism, while being the purest, most austere, most rigorous, and most otherworldly of renunciant and ascetic systems, has never had an institutionalized monastic structure and never become an institutionalized religion for the many. Thus, each Platonist contemplative ascetic and renunciant has always had to work out the particular and practical circumstances and logistical arrangements of his eremitical renunciant contemplative ascetic life and practice on his own, or with whatever few fellow travelers he might in some cases be fortunate enough to find, on a sort of ad hoc basis following and in strict adherence to the renunciant principles such as outlined above with care and discernment relying on his own developed understanding in his particular time and place and circumstances. He has often or generally had to do this without any of the financial, material, logistical, moral, social, psychological, or emotional support or props of the monastic institutions, cenobitical or eremitical, and institutionalized systems. Thus, this may still be done in implementing eremitical contemplative asceticism and renunciation in the adverse and unsupported time and place and circumstances of the present day.

In the atomized, anonymous, urban modern world, if one has sufficient devotion, determination, resolve, sincerity, understanding, and discernment, it is possible to practice devotedly and fully as an eremitical renunciant and contemplative ascetic alone and incognito and without support in the midst of the city. One can try to find a job or work of right livelihood to just earn the necessary minimum subsistence level income with a minimum of distraction. One can try to find simple minimum housing to rent even if it means sharing with worldlings while not doing anything they do and doing only one’s contemplative renunciant life. One can obtain and prepare simple food in a manner requiring a minimum amount of time and attention, considering only maintenance of the body and health, not taste. One can be purely celibate surrounded by women and pornographic and sex-obsessed society and culture. One can be vegan and non-harming surrounded by inter-species cannibals and killers. One can be teetotaling with drinkers and smokers and so forth all around. One can abstain completely from entertainments, including the ubiquitous electronic entertainments, among those who know little else. And so forth--one can be solely concerned with transcending this world and with the higher supra-sensory realities among worldlings who know nothing beyond the senses and the fleeting phantoms of this world. It is, of course, very difficult to do this, especially without any kind of support at all and especially in the procrustean modern society that has no place or respect for renunciants and presents all sorts of obstacles and difficulties to and discrimination against any who don’t fit into the norms of society. It presents all sorts of logistical headaches and great emotional and psychological hardship and loneliness (as the true renunciant life always does), but it is, at present, the only feasible and spiritually effective and viable option for pursuing the true wholly dedicated Platonist contemplative ascetic way and release from becoming, and this is all that really matters. As the Ancient Greek saying goes, “noble and beautiful things are difficult”.

Again, the principle, whatever the particular details of practical implementation for a given individual in a given time and place, is to totally renounce this world and the things of the senses as much as possible outwardly and inwardly in all respects and solely and exclusively as much as possible devote oneself in every way, in intention, desire and deed, to striving for re-union with the One, the Good, and release from becoming, genesis. One must turn both the love and eye of the soul completely around from this world of the senses and becoming to the One or the Good and bring all one’s life and actions and attitudes around in accord with this to the exact opposite of that of the worldlings and the world around one. This must be done even while all the time attending to the burdensome necessities of maintaining the psycho-physical organism until we can be rid of it and even if one is without any support at all--financial, physical, logistical, moral, spiritual, emotional, social, institutional, or psychological--in the quest. There simply is no other possible way to go and the thought of just wallowing in becoming in this and future births like all the worldlings around one cannot even be entertained even for an instant.

Ⓒ 2019 Eric S. Fallick

Flesh-eating as the Fall of the Soul in Plato's 'Republic'

Flesh-eating as the Fall of the Soul in Plato’s ‘Republic’

by Eric S. Fallick


The Politea or ‘Republic’ of Plato is an allegorical, symbolic manual and description of individual contemplative ascetic spiritual practice. As the text itself repeatedly states and makes clear, the ‘city’ is just an analogy, a blown-up symbolic picture, for the individual soul. It has nothing at all to do with politics, political ‘philosophy’, or governance of states. ‘Socrates’ represents nous, intellect, and the higher, divine part of the soul and its divine understanding. Nous descends from the noetic realm to this lower realm of the senses and lower soul, ‘goes down (from the town) to the Piraeus’, and in doing so becomes associated with a lower soul and faculties, ‘with Glaucon (son) of Ariston’. Nous initially descends only so far as to participate in divine spiritual activities and contemplation in the lower realm of soul, ‘will be offering prayers to the goddess and wanting at the same time to view the festival’. It then is immediately returning to the noetic realm, but is restrained by more lower souls and faculties, ‘Polemarchus’ and the others, and compelled to remain for a time and instruct them in righteousness and divine matters.

Book 1 then proceeds to establish the correct divine understanding based on the noetic realm and the Forms of righteousness and holiness and their necessity and superiority for living a well-off life against the naturalistic, materialist (in both senses of the word!), physicalist, immoral, worldly understanding, ‘Thrasymachus’. Books 2 through the first part of Book 5 then, using the analogy and symbolism of the ‘city’, though constantly reminding that it is only just that and showing how it is a projection for understanding the individual soul, and the ‘guardians’, the thoughts, understandings, and discursive reasoning and cognitive state of the soul, describes the cognitive and emotional condition and training and disposition and ordering of the soul in this world as a whole with both its true higher part and the lower soul and faculties endemic to being at the lowest level that is the sense world of the beginning and, for a long time, conditioned ascetic practitioner. That is, initially and for long time on the Path, the contemplative ascetic practitioner has proper orientation, thoughts, and ordering of soul only as a conditioned state attained through practice without actual direct realization and understanding and ordering directly from the higher hypostases and spiritual realities. This is a necessary preliminary and stage of the practice, and, indeed, one at which the practitioner will likely remain for many births as he progresses, but is still a conditioned relative state, one of right opinion rather than true knowledge, and, as such, is unstable and has the possibility of being disrupted or lost until it is made into true knowledge and permanence through direct experience of the higher hypostases. The latter part of Book 5 through Book 7 then describe the further practice of actual direct contemplative experience of the higher hypostases, the attaining of actual true knowledge of the way things are and correct renunciant, ascetic practice, the mode of practice with this knowledge and experience, and the transformation of the conditioned contemplative ascetic practitioner liable to the possibility of falling from his conditioned state of practice, however wonderful it is, into a truly divine renunciant with actual stable knowledge and a permanent understanding and ordering of the soul that is not liable to regress until the final end is attained. Book 8 and the first part of Book 9 then describe how the conditioned practicing soul might fall and the various types of lower souls in this world down to the very worst. The rest of Book 9 and Book 10 show the superiority of righteousness and contemplative asceticism over the worldly way and cover various important topics of spiritual practice and metaphysics and transmigration.

In Book 2, ‘Socrates’ initially proposes and begins to develop the model of the ‘city’ as a blown-up analogy for understanding righteousness in the individual soul. The ‘city’, the complex soul in individuated sensate existence in space-time with higher and lower souls and faculties together in relation to each other, develops upon the initial fall of the true soul into the lower realm of soul and body and the senses from the noetic realm due to the need for now dealing with the senses, maintaining the psychophysical organism and body, and dealing with individual apparent objects appearing one after another in space-time. At this point, at its initial minimal descent, the soul and its thoughts and faculties naturally live a simple, reclusive, contemplative ascetic life with only the minimum lower faculties and minimum possessions and involvements in worldly affairs to maintain bodily existence. It, or now the person, just has enough clothing, shoes, and shelter for protection from the elements as necessary according to the season. He reclines on the ground on simple mats and eats from simple utensils made from leaves, etc. He, most significantly for this discussion, eats a simple grain based vegetarian diet with the addition of some modest vegetarian ‘relishes’ for complete nutrition. Note that when the text refers to the modest and moderate drinking of ‘wine’ that ‘wine’ is a symbol for the senses, which are intoxicants to the soul. So the text is saying that the contemplative ascetic recluse living in peace makes use of the senses only to a moderate degree as necessary to the minimum extent possible. A contemplative ascetic and philosophos, of course, never drinks even a drop of wine in the literal sense or any sort of alcohol, and the divine Plato never would suggest that he may. (Incidentally, this symbolism of ‘wine’ as representing the senses and sense experience occurs elsewhere in the dialogs, most notably, of course, in the Symposium.) He passes his leisure in divine contemplation, ‘hymning the gods’, and content in himself with the higher and lower faculties in order, ‘pleasantly being together with each other’. He produces no thoughts of wanting any more, ‘not making children beyond the (present) substance, taking care to avoid want or war’. He passes his life in peace and health maturing these renunciant and contented thoughts and mental states and continuing such as further circumstances continue or develop, ‘reaching old age and handing down another life of such a sort to the offspring’. This, the text makes clear, is the true, healthy, and proper way of life, the minimum declension of the fallen soul if it has to be here in this realm, the reclusive contemplative ascetic renunciant life.

How, then, does this true ascetic pure life degenerate into the mess of ordinary human life and the world as we see it and the people around us, this mess having been such since time immemorial? How does the soul after its initial fall then fall even deeper into becoming, samsara, genesis, the cycle of birth and death? The lowest faculty of the soul embedded in the body, ‘Glaucon’, seeing the bad way of sensual pleasures and desires lived by most all in samsara, is not satisfied with the simple ascetic life and wants all the sensual pleasures and sense experiences and desires that it sees around it. It turns and corrupts the whole person and soul to consider these necessary and desirable and to pursue them and dive headlong into the karmic mess of samsara and create the kind of lives we see around us. Not only does it now require comfortable furnishings and utensils to use while indulging its now excessive and luxurious desire for food and feasting, but, most crucially, now wants, and even thinks it necessary, to eat meat, to eat animal flesh and to kill for this purpose, as it sees those doing around it. This creates the inflamed, unhealthy, licentious ‘city’/soul. In true Orphic fashion, flesh-eating and killing is shown to be a critical turning point in the fall of the soul, leading to the wandering as an alien in the cycle of repeated birth and death. (And, of course, reversing this and becoming vegetarian again is a crucial and essential step in escaping from becoming and returning to the soul’s pristine state.) Once the soul has imbibed the greed for flesh and meat and has abandoned the true ascetic life that no longer suffices for it and has come to require its life of continual killing and production of meat for its consumption, this leads in snowball fashion to desires for all manners of luxuries, possessions, entertainments, etc., as listed in the text, and even for sex, ‘female companions’ and ‘the things concerning feminine adornment’. Following from the perverse desire for flesh-eating, the soul and its thoughts are darkened, and it becomes firmly ensconced in pursuing the desires of this world and ever binding itself to and suffering on the wheel of birth and death (a true Orphic as well a Platonic image).

The explication of the complete meaning of the Politea would be a great task. Perhaps, this short essay has given a tiny pointer in that direction. At any rate, the Politea reminds us that flesh-eating is a great crime and primal transgression, and that vegetarianism is an indispensable prerequisite of genuine spiritual life and practice.


Ⓒ 2018 Eric S. Fallick

Relative Realities, Spiritual Systems, Genuine Spiritual Practice and Renunciation

Relative Realities, Spiritual Systems, Genuine Spiritual Practice and Renunciation

by Eric S. Fallick


Platonism is very subtle because it requires transcending the sense-realm, and, finally, only Platonism is of ultimate soteriological value among the different systems. All the other systems, especially those involved with institutionalized religions for the many, really take place just within particular relative phenomenal realities, even when they think they are going beyond them, and are very much wrapped up and involved with particular relative consensus realities and confound actual spiritual contemplative ascetic practice aimed at the transcendent and phenomenal sensory experiences and occurrences. (That is not to say that they aren't of value to particular souls at a particular stage of their practice in a given birth, nor that we can't learn from them, but ultimately to get free one has to access the higher hypostases through Platonic contemplative asceticism.) Plotinus has expressed this well at the beginning of Ennead V.9. Renunciation and asceticism is an absolutely necessary corollary of this understanding. A somewhat hokey analogy is that when we look at a website all that is really being sent is the HTML code that the browser converts into the web page we see. All the different systems are really just moving within their given webpages, even when they think they are getting out of it, and so are concerned with the details and things going on within their webpage. Platonists, however, are concerned with how webpages in general are generated and how to get out of webpages of any sort altogether! (For example, the Mahayana/Bodhisattva ideal is all dependent on and wrapped up in a particular version of relative reality that is no more than just another phenomenal sensory experience set that is no more valid than any. Tibetan Buddhism is especially egregious in this regard. Similarly, and even more so, especially given their notion, of the essence of their systems, of a single linear geocentric historical progression, the Abrahamic systems are totally caught up in and involved with and dependent on one particular phenomenal sensory relative reality as being of spiritual significance. Such observations could me multiplied practically indefinitely. As just one of countless examples, some Catholics go on pilgrimage to pray at the relics of saints--just running around all the time chasing after phenomena instead of pursuing noumena through contemplative ascetic practice, which would be real actual spiritual practice! If one tries to explain a little that such phenomenal 'miraculous' experiences occur in all different religious traditions and have no bearing whatsoever on the metaphysical validity of their theological and soteriological systems and are just more phenomenal sensory karmic experiences--things to be ignored and transcended in pursuing the Absolute to really get free--of course, they don’t understand at all what one is talking about. The same quite and altogether applies to Iamblichus and Proclus and other post-Iamblichus so-called ‘Platonists’ or ‘Neoplatonists’ with their theurgy and etc. Most sadly, they have simply jettisoned the true transcendent Platonism of Plato and Plotinus and replaced it with what is really just another worldly, phenomenal, particular relative reality dependent ‘religious’ system.)

All sensory or 'physical' worlds are just shadow relative realities according to the karma of souls, of which there can be very many--the present world of modernity and science and scientism and naturalism, especially, just being one of many possibilities and not one of particular validity, except that it believes itself to be so--actually, it is one of the worst and least valid of many possibilities since it is most unconducive to and makes most inaccessible true spiritual knowledge and practice and renunciation and thus makes most remote the possibility of making progress towards getting out of relative realities and their misery altogether. The true underlying realities are transcendent and spiritual and suprasensory and are the objects of real knowledge--sensory knowledge being relatively unreal and unimportant and variable.

The real unchanging actual Realities are the higher Realities or hypostases of the One or the Good and then of Nous or the Divine Mind-Thought--the realm of the Divine Mind and the Platonic Forms. From the Divine Mind-Thought then further emanates or devolves or darkens the last and lowest and least real level or hypostasis of Soul and the "world" or "worlds" that Soul perceives and creates through projecting the Forms and Itself in the realm of individuated changing sensate existence in space-time. This includes both the Soul of the All or "World Soul" and all the individual souls, such as ourselves. There is only experience. There are no other separately existing objects or worlds or things apart from the experience of Soul or souls. This level of experience where there are different souls and their variety of experiences that change and present the image of worlds and changing worlds is, again, the lowest and least real level and the only one in which there is change and the possibility of a variety of different experiences and, therefore, "worlds". There are as many different sets of experiences or possibilities of experiences or "worlds" as the possible combinations of projection of souls and their projection of combinations of projections from/of the Forms as are possible--effectively, an infinite variety. All these are determined by what we call 'karma'--which is the experience of the individual souls and the World Soul modifying each other's experiential fields through their volitional workings. The relative realities are just all the different sets of experiences and experiential fields determined by karma of the different souls and the World Soul. These are all that there is at the level of soul--there is no other sort of objective world out there. These sets of experiences and experiential fields can take all sorts of forms according to karma. The underlying Reality is only the higher hypostases and the unchanging Law or Way in which these are projected down into the level of Soul. Thus, all phenomenal things, all the things in the supposed phenomenal sense world--so-called physical laws, gods or no gods, miracles or no miracles, etc., etc.--are just parts of different experience sets according to the karma of different souls as mediated through the World Soul. This is what is meant by relative realities and such applications of the idea as that some souls may experience or have experienced a relative world, for example, where 'miraculous' or 'supernatural' things are more likely to occur, but we don't, or we experience at the moment a world where things appear to operate according to the so-called laws of modern science, but others didn't, and etc., etc. These hypostases and these workings are all that there is. One shouldn’t be mislead by all the foolish people and society around one into thinking that there is some sort of objective material world out there and that its workings are real and that different appearances within it, including those that seem to violate its usual workings, are of significance or spiritual importance. One must just strive to transcend all these relative realities and worlds and existence as an individual soul to return to Nous and the One and to create karma only tending to aid in this direction.

It can readily be seen that this nature of Reality means that actual transcendent-oriented contemplative asceticism and renunciation is the very essence of, is, in fact, identical with, genuine spiritual practice of actual ultimate soteric value. The actual ultimately valid spiritual teaching is this of the higher realities and the generation and ultimately minimally valid nature of the many lower relative realities and possible worlds and experiences and how to understand this and to escape from and transcend the cycle of rebirth in these lower relative shadow realities that are miserable as a result of their minimal degree of being and to return to the real higher realities that are freedom as a result of their really being or being beyond being. To do this one must truly renounce all the relative lower realities and life in them and all that is entailed or contained in them and focus, as much as possible, solely on contemplation of the higher hypostases. One must shift one’s entire being from the lower relative realities of individuated sensate existence in space-time and repeated rebirth to the unchanging higher hypostases of Nous and the One. This means having as little to do with the sense world of the lower relative realities as possible while one is still in them (though, alas, maintaining the psycho-physical organism until one is free from it will constantly do more than plenty of pulling one’s attention back to the sense realm!). This, of course, means as much renunciation of the world and all worldly pursuits, desires, activities and possessions as possible and single-minded devotion to ascetic contemplation (and ancillary study, etc.). The very turning of the soul from the shadow worlds of relative realities and relative non-being back to the higher hypostases of true being and beyond being appears in these very shadow worlds of relative realities as the very fact of true transcendent-oriented otherworldly world-denying renunciation and ascetic contemplation.

Ⓒ 2018 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (dot) com

Some Thoughts on the Great Problems of Manyness and Evil

Some Thoughts on the Great Problems of Manyness and Evil

by Eric S. Fallick


The One, the Good, the Absolute is completely perfect, changeless, whole, and one. Hyper-good, hyper-beautiful, hyper-existent, hyper-conscious, ultimately the only thing that really is—it is the Source of everything, by the support of which everything that has any kind of existence at all remains in whatever kind of existence it has. It is that to which everything looks and to which everything looks to return, whether aware of it or not. It is our source too. We seek to be re-united with It, love It more, or really only, than anything, and seek in It our only freedom. Yet, we find ourselves in a world of apparently many individuated, separate objects in space-time with much horror and suffering. We find ourselves as separate, individuated souls in space-time undergoing repeated cycles of birth and death as humans and non-humans, transmigrating and reincarnating since beginningless time, suffering endless misery and pain, seeing and experiencing all manner of evil, unless or until with tremendous effort over a very long time we free ourselves to re-become the changeless One. Even in the Nous, the Divine Mind-Thought, the noetic realm of the Platonic Ideas, which lies intermediate between the One and our present realm of Soul, though there is no evil per se except in so far as it falls short of the One and Its perfection, there is still a multiplicity of different things, the archetypal Forms, and the Divine Mind that thinks them without being separate from them, and subject and object, while not separated, are at least distinguished. How can this be? How and why can there be more than the One, especially when everything else is a descent from Its perfection? How and why do many things come from the One? Even more incomprehensible, how can evil, which is so evident and undeniable, arise from the Good Itself, and why should this be so? Indeed, compared to the One Itself, just the existence of anything else, even of those things we ordinarily describe as good, is evil in itself just as those things being other than the Good! Why are they then, and how can this be so? Why did our souls descend in the first place and the beginningless cycles of birth and death, genesis, samsara begin? These sorts of questions, and related variants according to different systems, have been considered and answered by many different people in many different systems of many varieties. No answer has satisfied everyone and perhaps there is no answer but to realize union with the Absolute through diligent contemplative ascetic practice, at which point both the question and the questioner cease or, to put it another way, the answer is obvious. Nevertheless, it may be worth expressing some thoughts on the matter from a thoroughgoing idealist and Platonist standpoint considering the vital notion of degrees of being and reality and pointing out a few erroneous thought/being patterns and habits that seem to me to impede our consideration of the issue and make it more of a problem than it actually is.

It must be recognized that we are thinking about this matter in our state as individuated souls at the lowest level of reality, which is what the world of soul and space-time and separate, individual subjects and objects is, and so our thinking and being is infested with erroneous habits and patterns concomitant with this world and, in some sense, creative of it. These patterns inhibit our thinking correctly about the great matters we are considering. The first of these habit patterns that I would like to point out is the very fact that we are wondering why there are many and evil things and events. There are no things and events. There is no physical world or world of objects and events that exists apart from subjects experiencing it. The subjects themselves are not something like object substances. There is only experience without referent, only spirit, only contemplation, only thought or knowing or knowledge or mind in the broadest and deepest senses of these words. This is all the more obvious at the higher two levels of reality or being. In Nous, though subject and object are distinguished, they are not separated, the Divine Mind cannot be separated from its Thoughts, the Forms, and there is no mistaking the Ideas for things, for realist objects. In the One, though ineffable, we may consider that subject and object are not distinguished at all, and that there is only pure knowing or knowledge or thought and nothing else. Again, all of Reality from top to bottom and beginning to end is experience, contemplation only. There is no realist's world or reality of things, physicality, objects, events, etc. Thus, the question we have been pondering has been incorrectly formulated from the beginning. It is unmeaning to ask why are there many things and souls and events and why is there evil. The question must be asked as why is there experience or contemplation or thought of multiplicity, of more or other than the One, and why is there experience or contemplation or thought of evil, of pain.

The second erroneous, upside down habit pattern that impedes our answering our question is thinking that the existence, which we now know means experience, of more than or other than the One and of evil is an addition to the One, that when there are many besides the One and evil besides the Good we now have a sum, have more than when there is just the One or the Good alone. Quite the contrary, it is a subtraction, many and the One are less than the One alone, evil and the Good are less than the Good alone. As we descend the scale from the One to the many, from the Good to evil, we descend from most real to least real. The experience of many and evil is a matter of not knowing, of knowing less, of increased nescience, of less clear thought, of a lack of knowledge, of clouded, dim, dreamy (or nightmarish) contemplation. Ignorance plus perfect Knowledge equals less knowledge, not more. Imperfect, multiple or evil experience plus perfect Experience equals lesser experience, not greater or additional. Dim contemplation plus perfect Contemplation equals dimmer contemplation, not clearer or added. So again our question has been incorrectly formulated. It is unmeaning to ask why there is experience of many and evil besides the experience of the One or the Good, why there is knowledge or contemplation of many and evil besides the knowledge and contemplation of the One or the Good. Rather, we must ask why is there less than whole or complete or perfect experience or knowledge within the perfect Experience or Knowledge, why is there ignorance within perfect Knowing, why is there unclear contemplation within perfect Contemplation.

The third erroneous habit pattern is our inveterate tendency to think in spatial and temporal terms when time and space appear at all only at this lowest least real level, and are only creations of the soul level nescient experience pattern. Indeed, even the very language we use, including the language used in this essay, speaking of “descent”, “higher”, “lower”, “coming from”, etc., reflects this limitation. But it is possible, especially at a higher level of contemplation, to exercise pure thought independent of spatio-temporal and picture and analogy and even linguistic thinking. The many of multiplex experience, the many “objects”, “events”, and souls that we experience at this level, the evil and pain that we observe and experience, and also the degree of multiplicity and distinguished items at the level of Nous, do not exist in space and time, they are not separated in space and time, but are only separated or distinguished by difference, or, more accurately, by awareness of difference. The different levels of reality that we have noted are not in any way spatially or temporally separated, but, again, are only distinguished by difference or awareness of difference, and by being more or less real. The difference between levels, which is only experience of levels, is only that of difference of degree or clarity or dimness of awareness, knowing, thought, or contemplation. The lower levels are less real because contemplation or thought of them is dimmer and weaker, they are weaker and foggier experience. Thus, when we think of the realities of the One, Nous, and soul and manyness and evil, we should not imagine that these exist in some sort of spatial relation with the One here, Nous there, and soul over there, or Nous and soul spreading out in space from the One or proceeding in time with the One being there first and then Nous coming from it and soul coming from that or the subtractions that make Nous and soul occurring in temporal and spatial sequence one after another. They are all actually simultaneously (unable to avoid using a temporal word!) present at the same point (unable to avoid using a spatial word!), as it were. Although we are unable to avoid speaking of our own spiritual and contemplative practice and either bondage or liberation in terms of movement and transition from one state to another, it is really a transition (again, unable to avoid using a spatio-temporal word!) from one state of knowing or contemplation or experience to another, not from one “place” to another, and does not actually occur in time, as much as it seems to to us.

Now we can formulate our question more correctly and attempt an answer. Why is there experience or contemplation or awareness or knowledge of many besides or actually less than the One and worse or evil rather than just the Good? Because complete and perfect Thought contains the thought within the laws of thought of thought that is less and worse than it. Complete and perfect Contemplation covers the contemplation within the possible realities of contemplation of lesser and worse and bad contemplation. Complete and perfect Experience comprehends that incomplete and unpleasant experience that is possible. Complete and perfect Knowledge knows also that knowledge that is lesser and worse and painful that is possible within the structural limits of knowledge, that is of knowledge that can in some sense be true even if far less and worse and less real than real ultimate Knowledge. This is so even though all this lesser and worse thought, contemplation, experience, and knowledge doesn't appear as such in the Absolute Thought, Contemplation, Experience, and Knowledge as such. The thought of calculus includes the thought of analytic geometry, trigonometry, arithmetic, and all lesser mathematics even though they don't appear in the thought of calculus as such, but it does not include the thought of invalid mathematics. The thought of a solid sphere necessarily includes the thought of two-dimensional circles, one-dimensional radii, and zero-dimensional points, without the sphere itself being anything other than just a sphere, but it does not include the thought of such figures as could not properly fit within a sphere. Thus, since the lesser levels of reality including manyness and evil are just subtractions from, limitations of, dimmings and incompletions of the Absolute, they necessarily are to a certain degree since the more comprehends the less, but they are limited by the overall structure, so to speak, or nature, so to speak, of the One or the Good, and fit, in a sense (non-spatially!), within in it and are determined by it. So, for example, this lowest realm of the many is still in a more limited way one since it comes from and is within the One, and the alleged realm of truly, really, absolutely separate objects, persons, and events of the pluralist, realist, or materialist is impossible. For example, evil in this lowest realm is still governed by the law of dike or karma since it is a subtraction from and within the Good, and the ungoverned evil of, for example, the eternal damnation of the Christians and others is not possible.

Will this simple solution to the great insoluble problem satisfy everyone or anyone? Probably not, but attempting to understand even conceptually is part of our path of spiritual and ascetic contemplation. The ascent includes intellect even in the lowest sense though ultimately transcending it. It will all be clearer if we keep in mind that this realm of manyness and evil is actually only the least, smallest, and least real level of reality. The One and, next, Nous are really much more real and constitute most of what is and always have and will. It is only because we are presently stuck here at the level of individuated souls and alleged objects and of evil and pain in space-time and have to exert such tremendous efforts to transcend it and return and have to deal with it all the time until we do get free that it looms of such importance and significance and difficulty and suffering to us. The main point is that this may help us and spur us on in our work towards freedom and re-union with the One or the Good which is ever drawing our souls back if we will only renounce this world in all its breadth and depth and devote ourselves as best as possible to contemplation and otherworldliness. The higher realities beckon. Hasten onward!

©2013 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (period) com

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.)

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