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Thursday, October 06, 2005
Rimban: A cave beyond logic
By Erwin Rimban
FOR the past few issues we have been considering the fundamental questions of existence. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? These three fundamental questions have challenged almost all the disciplines since the dawn of history. The natural sciences have developed techniques upon techniques based upon the scientific method to unravel the mysteries of existence.
The scientific method is one of the most rigorous techniques in the study of reality. Perhaps it is the most rigorous. Yet the final answers to these timeless questions have eluded it. The scientific method as a way to fathom the secrets of Ultimate Reality is awesome. But Ultimate Reality is more than a match to it!
Philosophy as the mother of the disciplines actually took first crack at these fundamental questions of existence. That is why we call them the three basic metaphysical questions. At the start of the quest for ultimate knowledge philosophy was all bent to the task at hand. This queen of the disciplines of mankind poured all of her being into the ultimate quest.
All the brilliant thinkers in the great pageant of world history took a bite at this delicious food, the quest for eternal truth. Socrates. Plato. Aristotle. Heraclitus. Parmenides. Zeno. Name it and they have all attempted it. All of them were masters of the quest and the literature of philosophy itself has bequeathed us volumes upon volumes of their insights. Go and read a book on philosophy and you will savor the richness of this quest. The eternal quest for Absolute Truth. Yet philosophy fragmented into many systems of thought. The masters of philosophy have been debating for ages without achieving a common synthesis.
And so the ages have come and gone. Centuries have passed. Millennia have passed. And still the eternal quest continues. Will we ever reach the summit of the mountain?
The better question is this: Can logic lead us into the promised land? Can conventional logic be our champion in this eternal quest for Absolute Truth? Is logic the final arbiter of the pilgrimage? Or should we look for another champion?
Religion despises conventional logic and has turned its sights on faith to reach the summit of the mountain. Faith is a powerful tool. But it has yielded us innumerable religious systems, almost a reflection of the fragmentation of philosophy. If you are a student of comparative religion then you will be bewildered by the variety and plethora of religious beliefs.
A thousand, no a million beliefs, will beckon you into their sweet embrace like the sirens in the voyage of Odysseus. Countless creeds born out of various sacred books. The pilgrim is inundated with doctrines and dogmas left and right all clamoring for his attention. How to choose? Which is right? What if the pilgrim has many significators in his natal chart all concentrated on the Libra energy pattern? Can you imagine the degree of confusion that must be occurring in his poor brain? Oh my goodness! Poor pilgrim.
There must be a solution to this dilemma.
There must be a cave beyond logic, which will lead us to the Promised Land!
I am not saying that logic and faith are useless. No. Rather these two ancient methods in the eternal search for Absolute Truth must be supplemented by an even more awesome weapon, an even more ancient practice that was prevalent in the primordial cultures of the golden ages of mankind. I am talking about mysticism. Mysticism is the actual, direct experience of Ultimate Reality. Mystics abound in all the ages, coming from various lands, cultures and traditions.
They are a diverse lot. Plotinus of Alexandra. Chuang Tzu of China. Pythagoras of Greece. Mysticism takes us directly to the core of transcendental experience. It has set aside logic and faith in favor of the actual experience of Ultimate Reality. Mystics are those who have actually experienced the presence of the Supreme Being. It is not a mental experience only. It is not conceptual or theoretical. It is actual! It is real!
Therefore mysticism is the cave beyond logic.
It is our final champion in the eternal quest for Absolute Truth. And what a champion it is! Mystics from different backgrounds are universally similar in their attitudes and insights about that ultimate experience. Study the works of the mystics and you will discover a common thread permeating their lives and teachings. But this is an expectation we had all along, isn't it? We expect the spiritual masters of the eternal quest to share us common insights and universal attitudes.
We expect the universality of absolute truth. But the way to the summit of the mountain has been diverse. There are many paths to the summit but there is only one summit. One goal, many paths. The spiritual poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow gave us a sample of the oneness of the summit of the mountain in the conclusion of his immortal poem, The Builders, absolutely one of the greatest mystical poems of all time:
"Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain
And one boundless reach of sky."
The Oneness at the summit of the mountain is the goal of mysticism. This Oneness unites people from all walks of life. Meditation is the preferred technique by which mysticism ascends the heights of divinity. Using the language of science then we can say that meditation is the method of research of mysticism.
If you have been illuminated by this insight, then join us as we explore more into the world of meditation and mysticism, our final and successful champion in the eternal quest for absolute truth. My email is wizardspen@yahoo.com. Blessed be! Embrace Infinity! God bless you all!
(October 6, 2005 issue)
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