METAPHYSICS

• A Memo For You 27.02.2004
  A Memo for You!? But of what do you need to be reminded? ...of something not so far from each and every one of us? ...the elephant in the room, perchance? ...the truth!? Ahhh--the truth! But what is truth? And from whence is our forgetfulness?

 
• The Church of Rational Enlightenment: An Introduction 11.05.2004
  By enlightenment, I mean the personal discovery of truth through its direct human experience. I qualify with rational because everyone must also be able to make sense out of any experience. I am using a church to facilitate rational enlightenment because, first, I bring science to religion and God to science.

 
• Emanation 05.07.2004
  The word "Emanation" comes from the Latin e-manare, "to flow forth". The cosmos and finite beings are all seen as having emerged out of the Absolute Reality through a sort of "out-flowing". Metaphors are with the ocean (the Absolute) and the waves (the Universe); the Sun (the Absolute) and the Light that shines from it (the Universe); a fountain (the Absolute) which overflows (the universe); and so on.

 
• Defining Spirit 24.07.2004
  I think of Spirit as the facilitator of cosmic gestalt, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Spirit is not an additional or an extraneous part or one big part to carry the other parts. It is the energy that makes possible the existence of parts and other energies. It doesn't really defy logic so much as simply existing outside logic but within, around, and throughout everything.

 
• The Primary Ontological Distinction 14.11.2004
  If we understand the primary ontological distinction that can be drawn between several very basic conceptual oppositions, we can begin to resolve a number of theological and philosophical conundrums.

 
• In Search of the Supreme Good 03.01.2005
  After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.

 
• The Unmoved Mover 12.01.2005
  There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it.

 
• About the Secret 14.01.2005
  Would you that spangle of Existence spend
  About THE SECRET—quick about it, Friend!
   A Hair, they say, divides the False and True—
  And upon what, prithee, does Life depend?
  

 
• The Soul: Whence and Whither? 31.03.2005
  BEFORE Manifestation what existed? Zat, the Truly Existing, the Only Being. In what form? In no form. As what? As nothing. The only definition that word can give is as the Absolute. In the Sufi terms this existence is termed AHADIAT.

 
• The Source of All Things 14.04.2005
  The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not all things; all things are its possession— running back, so to speak, to it —or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be.

 
• The Call of Conscience 10.06.2005
  Immanual Kant teaches us that there is nothing good without qualification but a good will. And a good will, he explains, belongs to those who are autonomous, obeying the law that the self gives to itself—a law that is intrinsic to all rational creatures. ¹  Later, Martin Heidegger rethinks these same basic notions in his phenomenological descriptions of authenticity and the call of conscience in Being and Time. ²

 
• The Cause of Causes 10.10.2005
  What honor, what a spirit it brings when a man fixes his trust on Him who is almighty. Rumi says, 'Though fire, air, earth, and water all seem dead things and only elements, yet they are God's servants; they work for Him and they always obey Him!'

 
• Intelligent Design 11.12.2005
  While it seems rather obvious that the objections raised by some Christian groups against the theory of evolution have less to do with scientific evidence than with what they perceive to be its moral and theological implications, their belief in intelligent design, nevertheless, is not at all unreasonable.

 
• The Perfect Life 26.01.2006
  It has been said more than once that the perfect life and the true life, the essential life, is in the intellectual nature beyond this sphere, and that all other forms of life are incomplete, are phantoms of life, imperfect, not pure, not more truly life than they are its contrary: Here let it be said succinctly that since all living things proceed from the one principle but possess life in different degrees, this principle must be the first life and the most complete. [Ennead I, 4, 3]

 
• The One and the Many 26.02.2006
  Oneness in a world so filled with variety may, at first, seem a difficult concept to comprehend. After all, we are surrounded by a myriad of plants, trees, animals, experiences, and people. Rather than attempting to make all things the same, however, oneness suggests instead that we have the opportunity to view this rich diversity as an example of the multiple ways in which the One Spirit tries to find expression in our lives.

 
• Our Source 30.08.2006
  I would like to share my thoughts about a personal relationship with God. However, I do not wish to use a word that is so broadly and disjointedly misunderstood among individuals, religions and philosophies. I will use the word Source and define it here as the primary cause of creation as a whole, including the little band of it that we call the physical universe.

 
• The Beloved Mystery Within You 31.08.2006
  Get comfortable and sit quietly. When you are ready, ask your Beloved to reveal itself to you. I promise that in no more than 2 or 3 months you will meet your Beloved.

 
• Freedom and Necessity 26.04.2007
  Here is the most singular phenomenon of human reason, no other instance of which can be shown in any other use.

 
• Our Representation of Space 24.05.2007
  SS 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception. By means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent to ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Herein alone are their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined or determinable.

 
• Incarnation, Excarnation and the Ever-Presence of God 15.06.2007
  The Great Mystery is One, infinite and eternal, beyond being and non-being.

 
• What is Advaita? 25.06.2007
  “So, Swami-ji, what would you say that Advaita is?” The eager young woman crossed her legs and sat expectantly, pencil poised above a pristine pad of paper.

 
• Our Representation of Time 26.07.2007
  SS 5 Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception. 1. Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.

 
• Simple Beings and the Mind 31.07.2007
  An object's function is its experiential path of motion through the Appearance and forward to its infinite and eternal source.

 
• Complex Beings and the Intellect 29.08.2007
  For some beings, there is a function that requires them to use selective creative powers to move and manipulate other objects and build patterns and forms of their own, as well as moving and being moved. In addition to knowing themselves as objects that have proximity to other objects, these beings must also know themselves as subjects that sense their own sensation of consciousness—they are aware of their awareness of awareness. The interplay of Field and form, perceived by a third layer of consciousness in this manner, creates a unique manifestation of the Universe that is conscious of its own uniqueness—a complex being.

 
• A Copernican Revolution 25.09.2007
  It has hitherto been assumed that our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to ascertain anything about these objects a priori, by means of conceptions, and thus to extend the range of our knowledge, have been rendered abortive by this assumption.

 
• Pure and Empirical Knowledge 25.09.2007
  I. Of the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it.

 
• The Fourth Layer of Consciousness 21.10.2007
  While the human intellect projects itself as a poor and isolated being, the Mind continues to perform its intermediary function; the direct experience of Pure Consciousness (the Life) in the Universal Mind becomes an indirect projection of the Life within the individual imagination. The resultant effect is a symbolic representation of the Great Mystery-come-to-Life in particular patterns and forms—an intellectual concept that evokes awareness of the presence of the Great Mystery beyond all conceptions.

 
• Spiritual Metaphysics Defined 30.01.2008
  While physics is the study of physical reality, metaphysics includes that which is beyond the physical, but not necessarily the spiritual. Spiritual metaphysics takes an entirely different orientation. Spiritual metaphysics sees an ultimate, metaphysical source of all creation as the basis of reality.