Rumors of Reality

What is the world -- the human world, or the world to which humans have access -- but a swirl of rumors, hints, and intimations? We try our best to map it, but who has the complete map? 

From our end, a complete map is a strict impossibility. Just imagine, for example, trying to map the past. From my experience as a history buff, the more I learn, the less I know. Dive in at any point and you enter an infinitely expandable portal or aperture. 

Moreover, each generation engages history anew and has a different relationship to it. It reminds me of when Zhou Enlai was purportedly asked about the meaning of the French Revolution: "Too soon to tell." 

One could give the same response to the meaning of one's life: until one is dead, it's too soon to tell. But then it's too late. Unless, as Dylan said to Silvio, we can Find out something only dead men know. 

In order to do this, we would need to have access to the end or telos, otherwise history -- whether personal or collective -- is just one damn thing after another. Supposing we could gauge the meaning of history, it could only be in the light of something surpassing history. And in order to understand the meaning of our lives, it could only be discerned in tension with the mature state of man, whatever that is.

Analogously, the most complete knowledge of an acorn wouldn't disclose its telos, i.e., the mature oak tree. And supposing the tree is beautiful, this throws another wrench into the discussion. Acorns are nice, but -- picking an image at random -- they aren't this:

So, knowledge of an acorn would reveal nothing of its essential truth or beauty. Or of the goodness of enjoying its shade on a hot day.

Now, my son is 19 years old, and you could say he's trying to discern his telos. He's taking philosophy and psychology courses, but this cuts both ways, given the number of silly psychological theories and trivial and even anti-philosophical philosophies. 

Just what is the mature state of man? If we knew this, then we could order our thoughts and actions to it. But if we can't know it, then we're plunged into some form of existentialism, which is the denial of essences, precisely. 

Rather, existence is supposedly prior to essence, meaning that we create ourselves via our own choices and commitments. There is no objective way to go about doing this, because teleology is jettisoned along with essences. Therefore, life is a random walk through time, of nobody to nowhere.

The doctrine of the Fall implies that we once knew the telos, but have forgotten it. But at the same time, we are haunted by gnostalgic intimations of a lost paradise, or of a world that once made sense, where we "fit in," so to speak. 

Now, here's a coincidence: I just picked up a random volume of Schuon, in which the author of the Foreword relates a story, the moral of which is that "the people,"

after years of acquired conditioning, through mindless absorption of the times..., had forgotten their own original state.

And "It is precisely this recalling of each of us to our own original nature that lies at the heart of religion," i.e., the prime directive to orthoparadoxically "become that which we are." Nice work if we can get it, but can we?

We humans each carry the truth and light of the Absolute within the depths of our being. And this light, Schuon points out, "reminds [each of us] of what he is, and of what he should be since he has forgotten what he is."

Even straight-up revelation doesn't work unless it is conformed to our own understanding, and reveals ourselves to ourselves. It must be specifically addressed to man as man, not just in his present state, but "where he is going," so to speak. In other words, it speaks to both our being and becoming, or present and future. But

we often confuse being human and becoming human. At the level of being we are, of course, human; which is to say, every child born of human parents comes into the world with a human essence. But it is quite another matter to achieve our humanity in our existence; that is, to realize to the fullest degree the very promise which already is our nature.

To become that beautiful oak. But unlike the acorn -- or, come to think of it, anything else whatsoever in all of creation -- "We don't automatically grow into our humanity." Rather, we have no choice but to choose, i.e., participate in our own proper becoming: "the very reason for being of the human condition is to choose, and to make the right choice" (Schuon).

So, the pressure is on! Unlike an acorn or kitten, "We humans are the creatures that can fail to become what we already are by nature." Which is to say, 

Biological nature develops us only up to a certain point, and then we must individually, with great deliberation and with full consciousness, seek the rest.

Lil' help?

All great scriptures of the world are written in order to provide each of us with a description of this way to become fully human. 

Yes, but which scripture? Even within Christianity there are deep differences over the degree to which we may participate in our own salvation. For Calvin, it is not at all, whereas for orthodoxy, it is quite a bit: "God does not justify us without any action on our part" (Aquinas). And

The reason why we are called wayfarers is because we are striving towards God, who is our last end and beatitude.

At the very least, we must know the True and will the Good: 

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe, to know what he ought to desire, and to know what he ought to do.

If there is a (free) will, then there's a proper way -- an Ought built into the nature of things. Wisdom knows the end, but prudence determines the path.

Having said that, it is not only "through our own efforts, ultimately, that we become ourselves." That is, we cannot lift ourselves by our own buddhastraps, nor is there any "program or method by which we can climb to heaven based on our own initiative." Indeed, isn't this the original flaw in the weave of the manmade cosmic area rug depicted in Genesis 3?

Grace, or something like it:

If we are to individually fulfill and express our nature, we must first recognize our radical dependence upon that Power which constituted us in the first place.

Undo the Fall, as it were. But is it in our power to (un)do this? It seems that our own attempts to undo it only result in doing it again. On the other hand, what if God himself were to cut the knot and undo the deed? 

We'll end with something I read just yesterday:

The human quest for explanatory wisdom is one that ascends toward what is "above" the human intellect, as explanatory of all else yet incomprehensible in itself, and this is the sign also... that we are able to receive from God... something we could not procure by our own powers or understand merely on our own terms: the epiphany of the inner life of God. 

Gemini?

Your exploration is a complex and nuanced one, raising more questions than it answers, which is perhaps the point. The search for meaning and purpose is an ongoing journey, and the questions you've posed are central to the human experience.