We're just flipping through Keys to the Beyond, looking for one that might unlock the doors. Of perception. And of realization, i.e., intellect and heart, respectively. Knowledge is one thing, its realization another -- at least for this kind of knowledge, which is always experiential.
Which is interesting, for what is "experience" anyway? In a moment I'll look it up, but obviously any conceivable definition presumes someone there to experience it -- in both the writer and reader. Like "being," it's too general to be defined with precision, as it encompasses everything.
We've been down this rabbit hole before, but who is "I" but the experience of pure subjectivity? And what is "AM" but its specification? Thus, I AM WHO I AM is more than a mythful. I AM applies to us, but goes double for God.
Ex•pe•ri•ence: direct observation of or participation in events: an encountering, undergoing, or living through things in general as they take place in the course of time.
Observation, participation, encountering, undergoing, living, time. Now, to define, according to the same dictionary, is to determine, limit, conclude, bring to an end, etc. The problem is, experience is literally boundless and unlimited, so it can't actually be defined. It is what it is, but more importantly, it is who I am, and more.
So let's not pretend we know what experience is, much less the experience of experience. That latter is purely immaterial, but this doesn't convey much, since 1) we don't know what matter is, and 2) "immaterial" is just the negation of the matter of which we already stipulated we are ignorant. Does this mean that the immaterial world is just ignorance²?
That can't be right, since the immaterial world is precisely where everything happens -- knowledge, experience, being, etc.
I'm always trying to think of the title of the unwritten book. If I could only come up with the perfect title, the book would write itself. One rejected title was The Metaphysics of Jesus. The idea was to go through his words line by line in order to explicate the deepest structure of reality.
First of all, if Jesus is the Truth, then not only should everything he say be true in the colloquial sense, but also relate the truth about the nature of things, about ultimate reality.
Example. His first recorded words in the Gospel of Mark are The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. There are many ways to interpret these words -- for example, what they mean in the context of Judaism, but what is the deeper principle by virtue of which they are true? Or, what is the ultimate principle they explicate?
"Time is fulfilled," for example, clearly implies that temporality must be something more than mere quantitative duration or meaningless change. Rather, to say that time can be "fulfilled" means at the very least that time had theretofore been unfulfilled, but what can this mean?
To the dictionary! Fulfill: to make full; to supply the missing parts of: make whole; integrate: to carry out: accomplish, execute; to finish out, bring to an end; etc.
Once again our definition doesn't de-limit or reduce, but rather, is incredibly expansive. But if Jesus is correct, it certainly means that "prior" to his presence, time is an impoverished thing: it is wounded and scattered instead of complete or integrated, nor has it accomplished its purpose and achieved its end.
That's a lot to ponder.
Anyway, back to the Keys. Laude quotes Schuon in a footnote, who says
The desire to enclose universal Reality in an exclusive and exhaustive "explanation" brings with it a permanent disequilibrium due to the interferences of Maya; moreover, it is just this disequilibrium and this anxiety that are the life of modern philosophy.
Well, first of all, this desire to enclose reality within our own categories has been declared against the Law by Deputy Gödel. But whence the disequilibrium? This occurs because any manmode explanation not only excludes a great deal, but necessarily excludes a great deal more than it can ever include. And what we exclude always comes back to bite us in the aseity.
For example, how much bigger is infinitude than finitude? Now you know why the tenured not only explain such an infinitesimally small portion of reality, but unexplain so much more in the process.
Laude talks about the need for a coherent metalanguage with which to map supra-reality. In the case of Jesus mentioned above, we see that he generally uses ordinary language to advert to the extra-ordinary. What would the same point look like in strict meta-language?
Let's face it, infinitude is a big place. How do we tame it, or cut it down to size? Think about linear thought and language. It can never do the job. Okay, how about circular? Now we're getting somewhere, but it all depends on the size of your circle. Laude alludes to the "spherical" quality of Schuon's writing. This is the way to go.
To be continued...
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