tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84296727534448833612024-02-02T08:06:37.760+01:00Language of airJoan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-73073456128187050762017-01-26T11:30:00.000+01:002017-10-20T17:24:06.618+02:00The wind spirits away the mind<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0YeClO832kG87e8aA_T7pyhYnYcd-WmXvfYhm5grMfy1CWHkG92_Xairz7L6KVx5vsp_AmujngS1fo6uByp3k44AyuTr2F1iaxQTvDrJxbBUVY0tm_w4EAnjQEX5YkcD817sn0sNEx1s/s1600/Psycheabduct.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0YeClO832kG87e8aA_T7pyhYnYcd-WmXvfYhm5grMfy1CWHkG92_Xairz7L6KVx5vsp_AmujngS1fo6uByp3k44AyuTr2F1iaxQTvDrJxbBUVY0tm_w4EAnjQEX5YkcD817sn0sNEx1s/s1600/Psycheabduct.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
<i>abduction of Psyche</i>, by
William-Adolphe Bouguereau.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rapture of
Psyche by Zephyrus. Allegory of the abduction of the psyche (mind, soul) by the
wind. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Zephyrus was one of the four divinities of air,
namely that corresponds to west wind, of the Greek mythology. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Son of Astreo
and Eos, it was considered the mildest and most benign of the winds. According
to the myth, he served Eros by abducting Psyché and taking her to his cave. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
wind literally abducts the psyche and leaves it in the hands of love and desire
(Eros).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The 'psyché',
according to the etymology of the word, is already in itself the 'breath of air'.
It is the breath that gives us life, mainly gives us the soul and the
understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus our soul
and our mind, ethereal by themselves, are completely at the mercy of the air<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-16292522692257387902016-10-12T12:32:00.001+02:002016-10-12T12:49:57.556+02:00Mind, body and environment.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRFX7w0Z5YCnpttNSK0elKgQX8SExj0k1vw83Y42MpY9jAKHl1YpEMbJEqrk4la5dElvcg1KgqyGMl6bxU-GaMLkuCsnyp4UFUC6mVDK5gWujQiVTbm32Ho8Oxs1mj51UZ5ednlULtvY/s1600/Ortega+y+Gasset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRFX7w0Z5YCnpttNSK0elKgQX8SExj0k1vw83Y42MpY9jAKHl1YpEMbJEqrk4la5dElvcg1KgqyGMl6bxU-GaMLkuCsnyp4UFUC6mVDK5gWujQiVTbm32Ho8Oxs1mj51UZ5ednlULtvY/s400/Ortega+y+Gasset.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Memory is not a 'copy' of reality. The
past is not in our memory. It is there as little as the future is. The mind is
present activity. Contents that mind produces, about what has already happened
or what might happen, are the result of its activity, they are not the mind. Brands
of memory remain with some of our experiences, but the fact we want to see in
these brands the reality itself or a reproduction of it is due to the bias of
our anthropocentric and psychologizing vision, by which we replace the world by
the contents of thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our mind does not work like a computer,
says R. Epstein. Our brain actually is not an information store. Our brain,
strictly speaking, does not process information nor recovers knowledge nor
saves memories. The computer is just a metaphor. What the brain does, more or
less, is to resonate with reality; it is like a soundboard that, as everything,
operates in the present, not in the past or in the future. It works in the
physical present, with elements existing in the present, with the energies now
existing which act now on our body. There are, at present, brands that were
created in the past, it is clear, but they are there as in any physical
reality; they exist because they occurred sometime in the past, but they exist
now, they simply do not 'represent' nothing more than what they themselves are
in the present. They exist as exist traces of temporary events in our physical
environment. They are not any replica of the past, they are only a trace of
time on something that existed in the past and still exists now, some form of
brand in an existing structure. They can determine reality in some respects,
contribute something to resonating the brain with the world around, it is true,
because, they exist in the present (which is the only way to exist), they are
part of reality, but they are not a world in themselves: they are a 'brand'
that can be very discreet. The rest is the product of the process, the result
of our mental activity: thinking, fantasy... mental contents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jose Ortega y Gasset said: <i>"Life is always a 'now' and consists of
what now is. The past of your life and the future of it have only reality now,
thanks to you remember your past or anticipate your future now. In this sense
life is punctual, is a point: the present, which contains all our past and our
whole future. So I could say that our life is what we are doing now."</i> (p.
39)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just to point out that 'remember the past
and anticipate the future' are mental contents, mostly fantasy so. What we
remember of the past is not the 'reality' of the past, is not the reality that
occurred in a passed present; in any
case, is what we now interpret in the present, which may differ from what we
interpret later, and it is therefore an experience that simply happens now.
These elaborations of memory are imagination, fantasy, they change with time;
they are not an objective reality but pure subjectivity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We see it clearer if we refer to the
future. The reality that finally happens in the future rarely is similar to the
future we think, to the forecasts we imagine. Are things as we imagine?
Absolutely not. What will happen in the future is unpredictable. We try to
predict what might happen, but the way the concrete fact happens never fully fits
with what we imagined. In any case, we adapt our expectations to what is
happening. Simply, the present reality is always changing: this is the
fundamental fact of our existence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Knowledge, then, is not within our brain.
It is more out of us than inside. Knowledge is 'reality'. It is shown in the
reality we perceive. Knowledge is a phenomenon that occurs when our brain
interacts with environmental stimuli and energies. In fact, this phenomenon of
interaction is both reality and knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Consider the following paragraph from
Ortega y Gasset:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">"A moment ago, when I paid attention to certain words I did not
heed me as not ‘heed’ the bench or the chair where I sit, and yet, me and the
bench existed for me, were in some way in front of me. The proof of this is
that if someone had moved the bank I had noticed that something in my situation
had changed, that something was not the same as in the previous moment. Which
means that I was aware of the bench and its position; I count on the bench.
When we go down the stairs we are not aware of each step, but we count on all
of them; and in general, we are not aware of most of the things that exist for
us, but we count on them."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"> (p. 41)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bench and stairway, with its exact
position, with each of its steps, with great detail, exist outside of us. The
information is in the surrounding environment. The brain, with its structure
and marks that time has left in it (memory), resonates with the surrounding
information. It searches and finds outside the information that is useful and
practical. Memory brands act as hooks that stick to the elements of the
environment and extract the information load from there. Memory brands are
basically links with the world, but not the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The information is at hand in the
environment, it is not necessary to saturate the memory, because we can dig
out, in what is nearby, search there. We deal with it, we select it, we look
for it. And we display our actions and our behavior with what we encounter we
are looking at every moment. What are in our memory circuits are marks that
time has left, or, if you make a concession to psychologizing thought, we can
say that is a kind of sketch or discrete map, but not reality. These personal
traces can link us with reality in a certain way, they make a way to behave, to
investigate and to evolve in our environment. But such marks are linked with the
information of the surrounding world, and they are activated and act
reciprocally with it. 'Reality', then, is what we experience when we behave
with this elemental memory map within the overflowing information environment,
content filling our experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Memory links work through the mechanism of
attention. Attention <i>"takes an
object from a plurality of the confusing rest and narrows it, highlights
it"</i> (p. 40). When an object that is simply there, and we know it only
vaguely (eg bench or steps of the stairway), gets 'engage' with the scheme of
our reality and our action, we heed it , we become interested on it in a
concrete manner, it passes to form part of our action. But the object is out
there, we do not incorporate it into our mind, we just interact with it. Our
mind does not accumulate experiences but participates in them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Consciousness is feeling more than just
memory, is to realize things from outside and from within us, is feeling and
living. It is a primary and essential knowledge, which has to do primarily with
everything one feels and senses at every moment. Consciousness has more to do
with feeling the body, feeling a toothache for example, that making an
'intellectual' task. Not that consciousness has to do with feeling, but that is
basically it, is to feel and sense yourself and things around you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ortega y Gasset said: <i>"To live is what we do and what happens to us from thinking or
dreaming or playing the stock market or win battles. But, properly understood,
nothing of what we do would be our life if we wouldn’t realize it. This is the
first decisive attribute that we encounter: live is that strange, unique
reality that has the privilege to exist by itself. All living is living
oneself, feeling oneself, knowing to exist oneself, where knowledge does not
imply intellectual knowledge or special wisdom, but is this surprising presence
that life has for everyone: without this knowing, without this noticing,
toothaches wouldn’t hurt us." </i>(p. 42)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This awareness, this feeling and feel oneself
in a certain way is what moves us to take or maintain an activity or another,
to search and select one information or another in the environment, to reason
and make decisions. The action of thought is to manage what we feel, the way we
are in the world (and their results are ideas or mental contents).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Consciousness is to feel oneself and the
world around oneself, we say. But it is true that we do not usually notice
ourselves, our body, although we always necessarily feel it, and we should
always count on it, because it is always there. Our mind, it seems, is so tied
to the body and our internal states and feelings, which confuses with itself.
Consciousness creates thoughts, emotions, volitions, illusions from how the
body is and what we feel from it. The mind counts on the body and is
inseparable from it, necessarily feels it, but only heeds on it when sensations
exceed, for some reason, the 'normal' (in the case of toothache, for example). That's
when we look at the body, and interpret pain, disease... But if body
stimulation is not high enough or abnormal, we confuse what we feel of the body
with what we think, and there arise our emotions, motivations, decisions,
impulses, even character. With these psychological processes we manage our
bodily states. In fact, these processes can genuinely be understood as the
mechanisms of management of internal stimulation, that is, of the life of our
body.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">"What is given to me when life is given to me is the inexorable
need to do something. Life is an ever have, willy-nilly, to do something. The
life that has been given to me is that I have to do it. It is given to me, but
not given me done, as the star or the stone are given to them and their
existence is fixed without problems. What is therefore given to me with life is
work. Life gives a lot to do. And the fundamental of tasks is to decide at
every moment what we will do in the next. So I say that life is decisive, is
decision. (...) If I have to decide what I'll do, I meant that life always puts
me against various possibilities to do. When leaving here I can do many
different things, at least several. Among them I have to decide."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"> (pp. 47-48)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A key element of mental function is that
we do not know or act directly on our body, but we manage what we feel in our
bodies in an indirect way, taking concrete surrounding environment elements much
further than its organic origin. Our body creates a 'background noise' that is
always there, a diffuse continuum of usually 'not conscious' feelings (not
conscious because we do not isolate them from the rest of stimuli with
attention, we do not bleed them) that determines the way we relate to the
world. We do not bleed them normally, it is true, yet it is impossible not
count on them, their presence is inevitable, because we are, above all, our
body. Our body is the main element of our situation, Ortega y Gasset would say.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">"Man usually bleeds nothing less than himself, yet with nothing
counts more consistently than himself. I always exist for me, but only
occasionally am aware of me as such."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"> (p. 41)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our own body, as we see, is not usually a
content of our consciousness, a result of mental action, but is, on the
contrary, the origin of such action. What becomes mental content is everything
around the body that can affect it in one way or another. Thus, man's attention
is set mainly in the environment in which it operates. The body itself brings
sensitivity, but little knowability. Do
not forget the information is in the environment, not within us. We are the
machine that interprets and searches but not the information itself (nor the mental
content, although very often we think otherwise because we identify with what
we think). Man feels the body but seeks the information outside. He cannot and
doesn’t know how to directly operate on the body itself; he has almost no
control on it (except on the muscles, of course).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are designed to look outside us. Useful
and practical to our action, what might happen, is outside of us, not inside us.
We do not know how 'to act internally'. Our behavior is developed outwards,
even though the ultimate goal of such behavior, as happens in most cases, is
somehow to affect the internal state that created it. We can say, in short,
that we are in symbiosis with what surrounds us: the environment is an
extension of our body. We seek and we project outside according to what we feel
inside. Constantly we confuse what we feel in our body with what is out there.
Our life, apparently, is to project how we feel to the world around us; we live
outside ourselves; the outside is what constantly occupies our consciousness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">"Being in a situation or in the world is constitutive of my life;
man exists outside himself, in the other things, in a foreign country, not at
times and occasionally, but always and essentially. To live is to exist outside
oneself, being outside, thrown oneself, consigned to the other things. Man is,
by nature, outsider, emigrated, banished."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"> (p. 54)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What is outside is content of thought;
however what is within our own organism, is not. What is inside is what dyes,
modulates or create thought, is running thinking. It is the precise now of the
action of thinking, unlike what is thought, which, as a result of the action, belongs
to the scope of the past (albeit very recent past). Thought inevitably has a
delay. The current thinking is running, is action itself, is reality, is what
we are engaged with the action of our body. What is thought is knowledge, is
the meaning of a self that is in the world, is the content of our experiences. Such
content does not refer to our body as it is, or to its instant action on the
environment, but we refer it to our subjective experience, and it conforms our
self and conforms the world as we perceive them. They are the image that
remains of the activity of thinking, a kind of echo of a few seconds delay.
With these contents, which we produce and they identify us, we substitute the
objective world by subjectivity of thought.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">"It is necessary to distinguish between the executive being of
thought or consciousness, and objective being. Thinking as executivity, as
something running and while running is no object to itself, does not exist to
itself. Therefore, it is incongruous to call it thought. For there to be a
thought is necessary it has already been executed and I contemplate it from the
outside, I make it an object to me."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"> (p. 118)<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br />Ortega y Gasset, J. Obras completas. Tomo XII. Alianza. Madrid. 1983.<br />Epstein, R. (18 may, 2016): The empty brain. AEON essays. Recovered from <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer">https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer</a></span>Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-11249044354453481692016-04-09T16:57:00.000+02:002016-04-09T16:57:09.062+02:00Psychology and Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX9HiDk5A8nfJMN3OaeN_MaZpMgJfo9SjvvuqDcwEpPjBFxfl2jRygWbeuZg4AOt3p6jI6zRkCx1kpyU50g_mkeIRUAXkgcUyNnRwus31BpR5MzmChFjzxRCSTYshyjTgCFyHDnRXGYQU/s1600/cor3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX9HiDk5A8nfJMN3OaeN_MaZpMgJfo9SjvvuqDcwEpPjBFxfl2jRygWbeuZg4AOt3p6jI6zRkCx1kpyU50g_mkeIRUAXkgcUyNnRwus31BpR5MzmChFjzxRCSTYshyjTgCFyHDnRXGYQU/s400/cor3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><i>The
more certain existence and the better we know is indisputably ours,
because, of all other objects, we possess external and superficial
triable notions, while we perceive ourselves internally, deeply. What
do we check then? What is, in this exceptional case, the meaning of
the verb 'to exist'? </i></span>
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>First
I see that I passage from one state to another state. I'm cold or
heat, I'm happy or sad, I work or do nothing, I look around me or
think about something else. Sensations, feelings, volitions,
representations, such are the modifications among which distributes
my existence and which color it alternately. I change, then, without
ceasing. (p.13)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thus
the anthology of Henri Bergson (1957), conducted by Gilles Deleuze,
starts, with this text of <i>L'évolution creatrice</i>, direct and
full of content. And follows:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(...)
I say, and rightly so, that I change, but the change seems to reside
in the passage from one state to the next state: for each state,
considered separately, I believe that is still what it was all the
time that it occurred. However, a slight effort of attention would
reveal me that there is no affection, representation or volition
which is not modified at all times; if a state of the soul cease to
vary, its duration would cease to pass.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(...)
But it is comfortable not pay attention to this continuous change,
and noticing only when it grows enough to print a new attitude to the
body, and a new direction to attention. Just then, we find that we
have changed state. The truth is that we are constantly changing, and
that the state itself is already change.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(...)
Because we close our eyes to the unceasing variation of every
psychological state, we are obliged, when the variation has become so
significant that requires our attention, talking as if a new state
had been juxtaposed to precedent. Of that we assume that, in turn, is
unchanged, and thus consecutively and indefinitely. The apparent
stability of psychological life resides, therefore, that our
attention is fixed on it through a series of discrete acts; where no
more than a smooth slope, following the broken line of our acts of
attention, we perceive the rungs of a ladder. True that our
psychological life is full of unexpected events. Thousand incidents
that seem cut with what precedes them but without being linked to
what follows them arise. But the discontinuity of their appearances
highlights on the continuity of a background on which they are drawn
and they are due to the same intervals that separate them: they are
the timbal beats exploding from time to time in the symphony. Our
attention fixes on them because it is more interested on them, but
each is carried by the fluid mass of our entire psychological
existence. Each of them is simply the best illuminated point of an
unstable area that includes everything we feel, think, want, all that
ultimately we are at a given time. It is this whole area which is
actually our state. Now, on states thus defined can be said to be no
different elements. They are continued to each other in an endless
course. (p.13-15)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We
perceive our existence as a sequence of jumps in time from a
psychological state to another. Each state is the 'best illuminated
point' of all our possible thoughts, feelings and desires at every
given moment. And the adequacy or appropriateness regarding the
stimulus or situation is the one that makes light the spark that
illuminates a specific 'point' and not another. So, what is in our
consciousness is, of all that has our mind, which best is linked to
the situation to which we are exposed, assuming that the situations
we encounter very often are completely unpredictable to our own mind,
do not depend on us.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
we will find out there there is no way to know, but we try throught
our beliefs, assumptions, prejudices, etc. which are a way to be
expectant, but, in retrospect, we see that rarely achieve their goal
of foreseeing the future . So, if we can not foresee what just
strictly is going on, does it make sense to ask ourselves what will
happen? We can not stop doing, we always do, in fact. We can not
predict the future but to prepare how we respond and how we perceive,
if not all possible situations, at least those situations we know
that are most likely, even knowing that the future will end up
surprising us. We must be constantly alert and expectant with no
remedy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Going
deep in the question, can we know if the situations of the
environment will be distributed in a uniform way or not over time?
This is, can we know when something unpredictable will happen?
Clearly, no. With regard to the sensory external world we can not say
that evolves in a uniform way, nor otherwise.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Regarding the inner world of sensations that originate in the functioning
of our body, we can only say that they follow the proper laws and
times of biology. The different life processes also evolve very
differently. In any case, what we know about them is that time on
them is not uniform but quite the opposite: they progress with great
variability, as impulses, pulses, cycles, phases...</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So,
to know ourselves, the succession of our psychological states, the
phenomenology of our existence, urges us to know how our body works,
its biology, but no longer in itself, but in terms of sensory and
conscious phenomena it produces.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bergson,
H. (1957). <i>Memoria y vida</i>. Madrid: Alianza</span></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-22223516799339200982016-02-04T09:42:00.000+01:002016-02-04T09:42:15.032+01:00Marcus Aurelius. The inner guide.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">In life, unless you want to be miserable, you must
find your way, the real reason of your existence, and not depend as a puppet
of what others think, say or do. You have to have clear ideas of what you want
and get away from the distractions and do not act because of hypocrisy or
selfishness, believing to adapt to 'souls' of others, which in reality you do
not know (probably you do not even know yours). This is the direction in which
you should work, Marcus Aurelius keeps in his Meditations.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">It's your soul which you
must find and you should go; you must respect primarily the soul that belongs to
you and not depend on the souls of others, although you also have to want to
understand them, but you need to know the movements of yours first, and from these
those of others. The main goal of our life is to know the real nature of our
soul, and its place in the souls of other people around us.</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"At all
hours, deal with resolve, to do what you have in your hands with timely and
sincere gravity, with love, freedom and justice, and find yourself a time to
free yourself from all other distractions. And you will get your way, if you
run each action as if it were the last of your life, devoid of thoughtlessness,
of all passionate aversion that will keep you from realm of reason, of all
hypocrisy, selfishness and despair with what it is associated with destiny.
You're seeing are few principles to be mastered to live a positive life course
and of respect for the gods. Because gods nothing will claim to who observes
these precepts."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 5)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"You
affronts, you affronts, my soul! And you will not have occasion yet to honor
you. Life is brief for everyone! You practically have consumed it without
respect for the soul that belongs to you, and yet, you cause depend your soul
of good fortune of others."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 6)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"Do not
external accidents crawl you; find yourself a time to learn something good and
stop yet turning like a top. Henceforth you should also guard against another
deviation. Because they rave too, amid so many occupations, who are tired of
living and have no target toward to direct every impulse and, ultimately, their
imagination."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 7)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"It's hard
to see a man unhappy for not having stopped to think what happens in the soul
of another. But those who are not closely watching the movements of their own
soul they will be necessarily unhappy."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">
(<i>Meditations</i>, II, 8)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"We must
always remember this: what is the nature of the whole and what is mine, and how
it behaves compared to that and what part of what set it is; keep in mind also
that nobody prevents you to do and to say what is consistent with the nature,
of which you are part."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 9)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">We are part of nature, which, contrary to what we
usually think (and to what 'books say'), is very simple: We are just flesh,
breath of life and inner guide. These are the three components. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">Blood, bones and tissues, which in themselves are
inert matter. The breath of life is what gives them life, it is the 'wind' that
moves them, which is always changing because, at every breath, the life-giving
air is never the same. The inner guide is consciousness and intelligence, and
it is above all, but must strive to not be swayed by the movements caused by
the breath in the flesh (the instincts), and to accept the smallness of life,
if one aspires to live with some freedom and happiness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"That's all
I am. Some flesh, a brief breath of life, and the inner guidance. Leave the
books! Do not let yourself be distracted; it is not allowed to you. But in the
idea that you are already a dying, despise the flesh: blood and dust, bones,
nervous tissue, tiny veins and arteries. See also what the breath of life is:
wind, and not always the same, as in all times it is vomited and sucked again.
Thirdly, then, you have the inner guidance. Ponder this: you're old, do not let
any longer it to be a slave, nor still following being shacked as a puppet by
selfish instincts, nor that it still gets angry with present destiny nor be
wary of future."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 2)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">Our nature is nature as any other. It is pure nature.
And it becomes flowing from a common origin with the whole universe, with the
transformations of the elements of both simple and compounds. Neither fortune
not even our will will be separated from it at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"The works
of the gods are full of providence, the Fortune ones are not separated from
nature or from weft and interlacing of things governed by Providence. From
there flows all. Necessary and convenient for the whole universe is added, from
which you are part. To any part of nature is good what works with the nature of
the whole and what can to preserve it. And both transformations of simple
elements like compounds they kept the world. These reflections are enough for
you, if they are basic principles. Put away your thirst for books, to not die
growling, but truly resigned and grateful to the gods."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 3)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"Remember
how long you differ this and how many times you have received advanced notices
of the gods and you have not used them. It is necessary that from this moment
you realize what world you are part and what ruler of the world you proceed as
an emanation, and you will understand that your life is confined to a limited
period of time."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, II, 4)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">In short, what we need is to be smart. Knowledge of
the nature, of our own nature (and that of the gods, who are also part of it), is the inner guidance, is what allows us to understand ourselves and be
consistent with the rest of nature. Anything else is miss our way. Going
against nature, in the best case, is a waste of time. And Aurelius especially
highlights a very important "detail" in relation to time: nature acts
in the present, our life becomes exclusively in the fleeting moment of the
present. The past has been lived yet and nothing can be done with it, and no
one knows the future. We cannot be controlled by them, then. The reality is
purely present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"Venerate
the intellectual faculty. In it resides all, because never exists in your inner
guidance an opinion inconsistent with the nature and with the disposition of
rational being. It really guarantees the absence of precipitation, the
familiarity with men and the compliance with the gods."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, III, 9)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"Reject,
therefore, everything else and retain only a few precepts. And keep in mind
that each one lives only the present, the fleeting instant. The rest, or has
been lived or is uncertain; the life of each one, therefore, is insignificant,
and also is insignificant the little corner of the earth where he lives."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, III, 10)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"Delete the
imagination. Stop the drive of puppet. Limit yourself to the present moment.
Understand what happens to you or someone else."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, VII, 29)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">The daily businesses often make us lose perspective
and tranquility, because they hide the natural order of things (the nature as
it is) to our reason. We must move away from the worries of everyday life, from
time to time, and serve only our soul, detached from the immediate worldliness,
to recover reason and to return back the right way. We must not forget that the
vital breath causes continuous movements in our instincts, which drag and
mislead our thinking, and we have to realize, at least when removed, the nature
of these movements, to understand them and not be subject to them perennially.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEind2RWpOOzc1eCN-zt3Bk70SwZwvzeTuknboAJDD8z22DweTJ_7SrLwUIKPWEIG67q1ZkJf_Aqv4DrdHQ6RvIkQ0j1B6VdOhSb_z3JDj3WhCe3GKsKmYwCao9PBYtv2n9Mgl2C8cFNp_U/s1600/marco-aurelio-relieve.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEind2RWpOOzc1eCN-zt3Bk70SwZwvzeTuknboAJDD8z22DweTJ_7SrLwUIKPWEIG67q1ZkJf_Aqv4DrdHQ6RvIkQ0j1B6VdOhSb_z3JDj3WhCe3GKsKmYwCao9PBYtv2n9Mgl2C8cFNp_U/s400/marco-aurelio-relieve.png" width="400" /></a><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"Nowhere man
retires with greater confidence and calm than in his own soul. Especially one
who possesses inside these goods, when he leans toward them immediately gets a
total tranquility. And I call tranquility exclusively to the good order.
Realize, then, surely, this recall and recover yourself. Being briefs and basic
principles when you have located so soon, they will be sufficient to retreat in
all your soul and to give you back again, without anger, those things in life
which you retire from. (...) Realize that thought does not mix with the vital
breath that moves soft or violently, once it has recovered and it has
understood its peculiar power.”</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, IV, 3)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">We all have an inner guide, a consciousness, an
intelligence in common. We all have a reason that orders the perception of the
world, whereby we know what to do or avoid, conveniently. So we all have a
common natural law and participate in a shared 'citizenship'. All
manifestations of the human soul come in first instance from a common natural
place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"If
intelligence is common to us, also the reason, according to which we are
rational, we have in common. Admitted this, reason that orders what to do or
avoid, is also common. Granted this, also the law is common. Agreed this, we
are citizens. Accepted this, we participate in a citizenship. If so, the world
is like a city. Well, what else common citizenship may say that all humankind
participates? From there, the common city, come intelligence itself and the
reason and the law. Or from where? Because in the same way that the portion of
earth that is in me has been separated from some earth, wet part from another
element, the part that breathes life, from a certain source, and the warm and
igneous part from a particular source (so nothing comes from nothing, nor
nothing leads to what not is), likewise also the intelligence comes from
somewhere."</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (<i>Meditations</i>, IV, 4)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">"To rational
being the same act is consistent with nature and with reason." </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">(<i>Meditations</i>, VII, 11)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-39329751376343477032015-12-29T18:55:00.000+01:002015-12-29T18:55:33.498+01:00Giordano Bruno. The magic.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Giordano Bruno argues in the book ‘</span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">De la Magia’</i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> that the absolute vacuum
does not exist, there is no space not occupied by any form of matter: In any
space, empty as it may seem, there are bodies moving and passing but the
invisible air particles, which are also matter.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The objects of the world are not isolated from each
other, among them there is a continuum of matter, he states; imperceptible
space among perceptible bodies is a continuum, rather than separate, mediates
between them, communicates and keeps them united. The air (or 'aerial or
ethereal spirit' as Bruno calls) is an imperceptible body, in principle, to our
senses but by itself is a true physical intermediary continuous among all
bodies, which is endowed with great activity and effectiveness upon the soul,
that is closely united to it, he says, and has a strong resemblance to it, at a
time that is very different from substance of thicker perceptible objects that it
links.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"The vacuum, i.e. a space without bodies, does
not exist: A body does not leave a space with no being replaced by another.
Certainly the soul leaves the body it occupied in life, but cannot leave the
universal body -unless we prefer to say that it cannot be abandoned by the universal
body-. It is therefore inextricably linked to the universal matter, so as its
particular nature is full and continuous everywhere, it recognizes everywhere the
corporeal matter which coexists with it. It is followed, he concludes that the
vacuum is not a disembodied space, but a space in which several bodies succeed
and move, hence the continuous movement of body parts towards other body parts,
through a continuous space not interrupted, as if the vacuum was merely a
mediator between two full -except want to call vacuum to space in which there
is no perceptible body-.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>An imperceptible body is a truly continuous body -etheric
air or spirit-; it is endowed with a huge activity and a huge efficiency, while
is closely united to the soul, because of their similarity; because it is away
over the rudeness of coarser perceptible substance of the compounds. The
invisible and spiritual bodies -those from which comes virtue present in the
sensitive bodies- are endowed with the aforementioned effectiveness, this is what
it shows the aerial spirit that makes flux and reflux the whole sea, and the
indomitable push of winds that, even with clear and calm weather, devastate the
land, destroy the trees, stoop the ships. As pointed Lucretius so well, that
spiritual body is the one who performs all operations in sensible bodies: in
turn most philosophers thought that it was no different from the soul, from
which the formula of the poet to describe the air, 'quantum ignes animaeque
valent', 'all fires and winds can' (Virgil, Aeneid,
VIII, v 403). As regards the fire, oblivious to the gross matter of coals that
are burning bodies merely, it is understood that it only differs from the air
by accident. The real fire is a real spirit, inside a body in combustion, as
being contained, asleep; outside that body, it exists full-fledged, full of
vivacity; and it is in an intermediate state in the flame, as set in
motion."</i> (<i>De la Magia</i>, p. 29-30)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The air is a physical and spiritual body at once: is
the wind that pushes and moves liquids and solids, and that feeds the fire, and
that the flame shows its movement, and acting on the sensitive bodies is thus
invisible matter of soul. Soul and spirit, according to an ancient tradition in
philosophy that Bruno gathers, are air, a very fine and subtle air.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"From water to steam, from steam to air, from air
to the finest and sharpest etheric body, is produced the mutation of the same
substance and matter to which the Egyptians, Moses and Diogenes of Apollonia
called 'spirit'. There is divergence in the fact that Moses does not
distinguish the soul of the spirit (if one adheres to his writings, without
prejudging the meaning) while the others have made a difference."</i> (p. 31)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The sight of Bruno is panpsychism: the universe has
soul. Air is a spirit that touches and unites everything. Air is an invaluable
stuff, apparently, to our senses but actually acts on our soul: air is spirit
therefore, also in the metaphysical sense. It is what unites and connects
physically all, while it is 'the soul of the universe' acting on our personal
soul, our thinking and our intelligence; it is 'the first intelligence': it is
God himself, according to Bruno.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"Some spirits inhabit human bodies, some inhabit the
bodies of other living beings, plants, stones, minerals; in short there is
nothing deprived of spirit, of intelligence; matter fleets from a spirit to
another, from a nature or composition to another, and the spirit fleets from
one matter to another; there is alteration, mutation, passion and finally
corruption, i.e. separation of certain parts and composition with others. Death
is nothing but dissolution."</i> (p. 42)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"All spiritual substance is reduced to one; every
spiritual substance is reduced to a triad. The soul, God and the first
intelligence above all things, the soul of the universe"</i> (p. 44)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Our soul is fed by the soul of the universe, while the
body is fed by air; the air gives them life. And our intelligence, which is
what makes us able to relate things, at once is a reflection of this universal
intelligence that relates them all. Intelligence, thought, passions,
instincts... the manifestations of our soul or psyche, are in the air. It is in
this context that Bruno speaks of God and spirits in general and of ‘demons’
when spirits produce some manifestations of negative character in the soul
(psyche) of people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">To him the phenomena of the human soul has a physical
existence outside our body; he equates these demons to household or
'pareterals' Roman gods, others had a specific name and certain power
recognized in some places, and more noble others had a relationship with music,
hymns and musical instruments according to ancient mythology, gods all of them
foreign to the thinking of the monotheistic religions, and inferior to God.
(Other authors don't speak of 'demons' but of spirits in general, or 'angels',
as Eckhart, in the Christian tradition, but ultimately the treatment given to
these 'minor spirits' is almost the same as Bruno.) There are spirits
physically in the air ('angels' or 'demons') organized by type of instincts,
passions and thoughts that they arise in us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"The proof that demons are of corporeal nature,
as diverse and varied as diverse and varied are all body types, is experiencing
affections, desires, movements of anger, jealousy, identical to those felt by
people and beings made of thicker and sensitive matter."</i> (p. 45)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"Above the condition of those demons stands the
God one which, by nature, 'has no need of us, is not sensitive to the favors
nor is touched by anger'."</i> He said using the words of Lucretius (<i>De Rerum Natura</i>, II, V, 650-651). (p.
46)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"It must be said with confidence and kept on
thinking that all things are full of spirit, soul, upper power, God or
divinity, and that intellect and soul are all integral parts but not all do
everything in everywhere. This is what the poet</i> (Virgilio)<i> refers inspired by
the Pythagorean doctrine</i> (and plays the <i>Aeneid</i>,
VI, V, 724-729).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>'And above all, sky and lands, liquid plains, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>The bright globe of the moon, and the Titanic star, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>An inner blow nurtures them; infused to all limbs, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>The spirit moves throughout its mass, and mixes in the
great body. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>Men and animals, birds, all extract life from there, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>And these monsters the waves carry under its marble
surface.'<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>This is also the sense that everyone attributes to the
sacred arcana, as in Psalm and the Book of Wisdom: "The spirit of the
Lord has filled the world, and what contains all things', and moreover 'I fill
heaven and earth'.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>Corporeal substance is distinguished from such
substance of thought, soul, sublime spirit in this: the corporeal whole is all
in the entire universe, while the other substance is all entire anywhere,
constituting a sort of anything and restoring the image of the whole, here more
vividly, more darkly there, here about the unique way, multiple ways there...
If all the blows ['spiritus'] and parts of the air they will join thus in a
single ocean, they will form a unique soul, for many they were. The
philosophers conclude from this that there is single matter, a single spirit, a
single light, a single soul, a single intellect."</i> (p. 46-47)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Bruno,
Giordano. <i>De la Magia. De los Vínculos en General</i>. Cactus, Buenos
Aires, 2007.<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-60390296060682500802015-10-09T16:25:00.001+02:002015-10-09T16:25:38.104+02:00A physical mind but not just organic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7zRk9AHUydByS57cNl6dw4YTzlY67tb5WfZ33qa2OuiHd7tfFuc0cq2_69l7KK1wY3LgYnhf-e2cVq94Rfo9B2HR1PNrER-6Ywp81w2GDtAYZ89DL8yjzQePomF_2x8p1zHkYs_eZqCo/s1600/PA220025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7zRk9AHUydByS57cNl6dw4YTzlY67tb5WfZ33qa2OuiHd7tfFuc0cq2_69l7KK1wY3LgYnhf-e2cVq94Rfo9B2HR1PNrER-6Ywp81w2GDtAYZ89DL8yjzQePomF_2x8p1zHkYs_eZqCo/s400/PA220025.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Throughout history, in
different times and in different areas of thought, mind was very
differently conceived than we do today. Here is shown an
unconventional design to modern science, which is the idea of soul as
something material, in one hand, yet not totally contained within the
physical limits of the body or located in any specific part of the
body, in the other.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">This idea, that can be
shocking, is that of an 'extensive' soul, a material element that
acts on the body. This soul would be 'made' of a non-solid, much more
subtle than the body, almost imperceptible, like air or breath, but
also physical.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Initially it is difficult to
understand a conception like this, in which the most human, what
defines us as persons, ceases to be located within 'us' in the
misunderstanding that 'we' are simply 'our body'. In our
interpretation the soul as an exclusive product of nervous system
function disappeares, it does not 'emerge' spectacularly from brain
activity. This contradicts apparently some fundamental assumptions to
modern science. But, not being this soul anything metaphysical or
immaterial but just pure matter, also seems to contradict the
religious dogmas. </span>
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">One idea of the soul and
mind like this encounters with religion (see the case of Michael
Servetus for example) and initially gives the impression that escapes
the 'scientific' study or, at least, is strange to the philosophical
and psychological 'scientific' paradigms, but, ultimately, persists
in many manifestations of popular tradition and in imagination and
beliefs of people. The existence of an ethereal soul that 'comes'
from nature and that 'moves' the body, that literally gives life to
it and its ability to move and act, and that is the ultimate cause of
acts of the subject, is an idea that, even today, illuminates
thinking of many people and appears repeatedly in many expressions of
oral and written tradition worldwide. </span>
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">This appears over entire
literary tradition of ancient mythology, in the orphism, in Homer, in
the Ionian philosophers thinking, in fairy tales and fantastic
stories, it <span style="color: black;">appears in Hippocratic Corpus, in
Ibn Arabi and Michael Servetus writtings, in Maister Eckhart, in
Shakespeare... And generally is given a deep meaning to it extremely
intimate and poetic related to the sense of life and the individual's
link with nature and the universe. This is a no ordinary topic but,
on the contrary, is quite poetic. The words of Emerson and Hölderlin
perfectly could illustrate this sensitivity we speak about.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFmhpCNqXP67K8lCacYxqcD0ckPI3NSXxtiSRkBxOxkKo4uyraQ2pj3oGkUCkRUtp7I6GT9wyS1gAY4H8TcyF6rSE5I2uzh33u-QzHBMi2LtPUKprCwS7dqm7QD844P6Qf4KdEsKy1PQ/s1600/1180028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFmhpCNqXP67K8lCacYxqcD0ckPI3NSXxtiSRkBxOxkKo4uyraQ2pj3oGkUCkRUtp7I6GT9wyS1gAY4H8TcyF6rSE5I2uzh33u-QzHBMi2LtPUKprCwS7dqm7QD844P6Qf4KdEsKy1PQ/s320/1180028.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In
Homer the soul is regarded as strictly material: a spirit or a ghost,
something vaporous surrounding the body. Homer speaks in particular
of 'zimos', the 'substance of life', the steamy breath of the soul,
the active material, the sensing and thinking one related to
air-spirit and to blood. It is a physical
substance, but vaporous, not solid, and not just an inert material
but active. In fact it is what provides activity to human body when
is in contact with it. Provides the ability to feel and think,
carries life and activity, moves and encourages the body... It is the
principle of life. It leaves us, Homer says, when we vanish or, with
our last breath, when we die. The human body is totally inert without
it. The zimos only manifests itself when acts on the blood that runs
through the living body, when, as air, gives breath to the body and
so life and the ability to think. Air, blood, life and thought are
inseparable. </span></span>
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">However,
when this type of stuff does not touch nor act on a body, but exists,
has not the ability to manifest in a vital and mental way. Homer
called 'psyche' to this condition, and reduced it to that which
remains, with no real consciousness, in the 'house of Hades', while
it has not a living body and does not feed on blood. Somehow the
psyche exists only potentially, it consists of unrealized ideas that
can manifest but they do not, of potential content of thought but not
real mental activity. They are only ideas not expressed in any vital
(mental) act. </span></span>
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">To
Homer the conscious life and thought processes are not confined to
the ideas themselves, in abstract, but they go beyond and depend,
more than of ideas as informational content, of the action of air on
blood throught breathing, namely of the psychobiological act that
makes the ideas 'live': the zimos.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJzFVARiM-KRWdiacm-FtHC8B9nWgBoOhseCEgvkyZjko2DS7FGPpAoq9A-p5FWsCrSgjpp6aXFukAGBYqjJs8vQIEiuMmckFyxGzrvFMM7SKpJ9cA7AVv_ocz6nAXu4S_7b3gaecsBr8/s1600/Cor+i+pulmons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJzFVARiM-KRWdiacm-FtHC8B9nWgBoOhseCEgvkyZjko2DS7FGPpAoq9A-p5FWsCrSgjpp6aXFukAGBYqjJs8vQIEiuMmckFyxGzrvFMM7SKpJ9cA7AVv_ocz6nAXu4S_7b3gaecsBr8/s320/Cor+i+pulmons.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The
soul is identified with the engine of the living body and is
considered the principle of life. It spreads throughout the body,
through breath and blood, from lungs and the heart. Clearly, this Homeric soul corresponds to the air
introduced into the body by the action of lungs (breath), which
spreads around it through blood and the heart and finally manifests
in the mental activity as the form of vital activity that it is.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Another
term used by Homer to refer to mind was 'frenes'. This term
originally meant, in this author, 'lungs and heart', precisely. With frenes Homer did not refer directly to
air or breath of the soul, which corresponds to zimos, but to body
organs through which the air or breath acts and manifests on soul and
mind.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Homer
shows repeatedly in his work a mind-body dualism that persist in
later Greek authors. This dualism, says Popper, is typical of the ancient tendency to think in
terms of mortal-immortal polar antithesis. The body is mortal and the
soul is immortal. In Homer the soul, but immortal, is just a material
element, although different and irreducible to the stuff of the body.
In fact (and this is important) this is a materialistic dualism. The
soul is identified with life, with material elements of life like
breath and air, and blood, and involves the functioning of body
organs. But it is not confined to them; physically transcends the
body, comes from outside and is immortal, as the air is. </span></span>
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In the
Ionian philosophical tradition, the so-called physical philosophers,
from Anaximenes to Diogenes of Apollonia, the Homeric conception of
the soul remains almost intact: the soul is essentially air. We know
this, in part, by Aristotle, who also said about the ancient religion
of Orpheus <i>"called Orphic poems say that the soul, carried by
the winds, fully fits animals when they breathe"</i>. Aristotle himself located in the heart, the organ
that distributes the air with the blood throughout the body, the seat
of consciousness.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">As Guthrie points
out, to Aristotle 'psyche' meant <i>"not only a soul, but soul
in general, namely a kind of psychic material that filled the world”</i>.
Indeed, it seems that Aristotle himself, as the preceding materialist
thinkers, considered the soul as air, and the particular soul as an
air parcel, because the soul must be the lighter form of matter that
people knew, which was the air.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Before Aristotle, Anaxagoras
stated that <i>“the mind is the most rarefied and purer stuff; it
knows everything about anything and has the ultimate power. Moreover,
anything that has life or 'psyche', the largest body and the
smallest, it is governed by the mind yet”</i>. To Anaxagoras, the
mind is the principle of movement and order and, consequently, it is
the principle of life. And he distinguishes the mind from all other
substances as the more 'rarefied and pure', namely something ethereal
or 'air'. And he identifies this 'ethereal stuff' as the cause of
knowledge that governs mind and life of organisms, like the zimos of
Homer.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">To Heraclitus, the soul is
fire. Not so much a substance as a process. All material stuff flow,
all are processes, the universe as a whole included. Each is governed
by the order or 'logos', an universal intelligence. To Heraclitus,
fire is the most powerful material process, purer and also the finest
and subtle. And so he identified it with the soul. Fire is the
'logos' and is the soul, which subsumes both the man and the entire
universe. The soul is not the air itself yet, but the fire, the
process in which air is consumed. Soul is not a state of the air but
a process (of consumption) of it.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">To Democritus, probably the
most consistent materialist thinker, the soul is composed of smaller
atoms. They are especially suitable for round and move through all
things and to move one to others through their own movement.
According to Aristotle they are the same
atoms of fire. This little soul atoms penetrate the body and
distribute so that they alternate with bigger bodily atoms and act on
them through their inner movement. </span>
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In addition, Democritus
concretes that <i>"the soul has two parts: one that is rational,
located in the heart, while the irrational is dispersed throughout
the entire body"</i>. Briefly, the soul acts on the body in a
totally mechanical force exerted by atoms on the full extent of the
body, force that has its origin in a rational order generated in the
heart. This is more or less the same: small atoms, round, dynamic,
similar or identical to those of fire (which is the process of
consumption of air, remember) that are distributed throughout the
body and provides order and 'reason' (mind) from the heart (blood
circulation again).</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.6cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofk7qUCUq2Is2bPtixH3Z_UMffPy4IDGfDU_RoG_ObrpmuUm0o8RWkYYCx2s7BNG8da13Meq8mBUqk9pcCujhAylKr3SMhYs2m_wBLbm5Yq9ZyrKSElIm9sIC-PUBom7omwUt6-XeYGY/s1600/angiografia_cerebral_integracao_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofk7qUCUq2Is2bPtixH3Z_UMffPy4IDGfDU_RoG_ObrpmuUm0o8RWkYYCx2s7BNG8da13Meq8mBUqk9pcCujhAylKr3SMhYs2m_wBLbm5Yq9ZyrKSElIm9sIC-PUBom7omwUt6-XeYGY/s1600/angiografia_cerebral_integracao_4.jpg" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Hippocratic School held
a similar approach on the soul, despite putting in the brain the seat
of feeling, thought and movement control, instead of the heart. They
explain that the air is what gives intelligence to the brain
(throught blood) and interpret very explicitly this air as the
highest soul. The air contributes directly to intelligence. The
location in the brain is argued in the sense that when a man
introduces air into himself (by breathing), this air always reaches
the brain at first (from blood circulation), they say, and thus acts
on it with all the power of a 'logos-order-intelligence' inherent to
the intact and pure air, which many people consider 'divine'.</span></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-59671536449556523532015-09-28T16:48:00.000+02:002015-09-28T16:48:11.207+02:00Vital force<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHvGVU-eV8H1cXqJS6A7AQIhyphenhyphenzrPFsvqNVchf_AfdskjVNr-rblHvWOz_Zud6dbDlQdTT0P11lpN7DOXm3pID2O0WCT_bTVb8UJ1RAgbogazITN9NN8NhKdkwPAdWhTDFSg0mX4MkZVXo/s1600/selfaware-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHvGVU-eV8H1cXqJS6A7AQIhyphenhyphenzrPFsvqNVchf_AfdskjVNr-rblHvWOz_Zud6dbDlQdTT0P11lpN7DOXm3pID2O0WCT_bTVb8UJ1RAgbogazITN9NN8NhKdkwPAdWhTDFSg0mX4MkZVXo/s1600/selfaware-01.jpg" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Bergson
said "the spirit embraces the past, while the body is confined in a present that constantly begins again and again". Indeed,
our mind handles content that come from the past but it works
organically in the pure present, which is constantly renewed
independently of those memories. All true operation, mental or of any
kind, necessarily occurs in the present...</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">We
do not perceive the present in a pure way, we can only to intuit; it
is a hidden variable to our direct knowledge and we just can make
suppositions, because all perception is contaminated by traces of the
past, by the knowledge we have been setting over time. Memories shape
our perception of objects and events that occur now. However
everything real occurs now, in 'a present that continually starts
again and again' and in which we are confined. It seems a terrible paradox.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The
present is the duration of the phenomena, the duration of the actions
of our body and our perceptual and cognitive systems. The present is
biology. Any activity of our body is hopelessly confined to it. It is
an unstable, shifting, biology, made of events and actions, which
makes change our psychology beyond the mental contents and their
associations in memory. The variable physiological activity that
underlies the mind is pure action and succession, while the mind,
subjective result of such succession, is a continuous recreation of
the past, is an invention of the past from an organic mind that
although we sense it, we do not know it.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjRfx_p8_CfurnT1z0jjRMr8izwmYyHyl2dM0yF5z_65cNIkmMnSvp_YKJ5_uyBpVCAnqOBjeqvSXAFrfmLcXhKznajMZZ3PqIhkyuNYc5Ew4Ayf3BUzsXt5ULtJfPPxLUObWtGFLVuY/s1600/selfaw2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjRfx_p8_CfurnT1z0jjRMr8izwmYyHyl2dM0yF5z_65cNIkmMnSvp_YKJ5_uyBpVCAnqOBjeqvSXAFrfmLcXhKznajMZZ3PqIhkyuNYc5Ew4Ayf3BUzsXt5ULtJfPPxLUObWtGFLVuY/s320/selfaw2.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Physical
activity of mind, with its own variations, is not encodable to mind
itself, it is not perceptible as mental content that has to be fixed
in memory, although it is 'perceived' many times in a sensory level
and in a high degree. The physiology behind the mind does not enter
into its own electrophysiological circuits as content, since it is
what sustains them, gives them energy, makes vary, work and flow them.
No activity by itself can to represent itself; something like that
simply can not exist.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">This
is a totally animal primary reality, that just happens, without
logic, and that makes you feel subjective states and which unfolds,
yet now, the logic of the contents of your mind. This dyes that
contents, modulates them, but is not one of them. These variable
physiological states affect all mental functioning, memory, thought,
emotions but are not assimilated as content. They break the rules of
the association of ideas. Do not work as memory traces or contents or
thoughts, can not be integrated into the informational circuits. But
we feel them and they affect the whole. They are much more primary,
are the price we pay for being biological organisms, for being alive;
they are the specificity of our biology. They are the 'elan vital',
the 'vital force'. They are what always will differentiate us from
the most sophisticated machine that can ever exist.</span></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-776379047186966862015-09-09T17:44:00.001+02:002015-09-09T23:29:29.399+02:00The consciousness and the brain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6DCFtNRnxpQMVpW2YZaYLSTharwCSdvqVkZX_NkyC0MOASf_6ijzq8NRfsoK598eq_pksyG5fAwMcSnKPcr891GhbVYbyHPs2BxlMfqvbPVMcUx6AcVERqevHCqMY1zlJjCq50YTQ8yk/s1600/conscTastodestro_sfondo_08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6DCFtNRnxpQMVpW2YZaYLSTharwCSdvqVkZX_NkyC0MOASf_6ijzq8NRfsoK598eq_pksyG5fAwMcSnKPcr891GhbVYbyHPs2BxlMfqvbPVMcUx6AcVERqevHCqMY1zlJjCq50YTQ8yk/s400/conscTastodestro_sfondo_08.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Every
time we attend to somewhat, there is an idea which directs our mind,
from the set of possible ideas that have some relevance to the
specific situation we experience, which is the 'guiding idea', common
to them all. It shares elements with all of them, relates to them,
organizes them. It is the idea that prevails in the effort we make to
adjust our mind to reality, when our consciousness works to give a
fitting response to perceived reality. The diversity and richness of
possible thoughts concretes every moment, in this way, in a single
thought. Mental effort and intelligence consist precisely in that:
the action of selecting the best idea of all possible. It is a more
or less intense effort but in any case it is always an activity of
intellectual discernment, since 'all possible ideas' can be many and
they keep some relationship (more remote or less) all with the
situation, </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">'are analogous each other or are coordinated with each
other'</i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">, says Bergson, thus the task of differentiation can be
complex. They are intellectual elements in process of organization
which are realized every moment by mental effort and reasoning.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">All
mental effort is actually a tendency to 'monoideism', focuses the
mind and makes rely on a single representation. But from the fact
that a representation is single not follows that it is a simple
representation. Rather, it can be very complex, and in fact, it is
precisely because of the complexity of the ideas that mental or
intellectual effort occurs. The complexity determines the difficulty.
Every idea that is manifested in consciousness is the result of a
more or less complex process of elements discernment that grow up and
interfere, related to the situation we are experiencing. There are
easier and more laborious situations and representations, that
require lower or higher intellectual tension; in the first case are
composed of few or distinct elements, in the second case are composed
of many elements or poorly differentiated. And is intelligence and
experience (the wealth of knowledge, the memory) of each of us that
determines the degree of definition or differentiation of elements
for each of us, that is, our ability to discriminate them actually.
The more we know them, the task will require less effort and stress,
and the less we know them, the task will be more difficult and will
generate more mental stress.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
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<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Mind,
brain and external objects are an indivisible block. One define one
another. Mental representations (perceptions, thoughts) occur when
objects and brain are one in the presence of each other. The brain
does not create reality, but is activated by external stimuli and
produces certain patterns of activity in front of them, which at the
manner of science we can say they represent these stimuli or
situations, but in any case they constitute our phenomenal reality.
Brain activity never replaces reality; they must be both
simultaneously, one in the presence of the other. Brain does not
create the world, simply reacts to it in a concrete way. Our memory
and our knowledge does not contain the world but only a very partial
representation of it, which is activated in front of it.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The
brain, our whole body and the world around us are in continuous
variation. We perceive in ourselves and in the world discrete states
because our attention individually distincts elements of the
continuum througth its 'monoideism'; the continuum of reality is
beyond our mental capacities, our efforts, our intelligence, and must
be converted into discrete. </span></span>
</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Our
states are not static, because if so they would not exist: there
would be no change to detect, there would be nothing to detect. <i>"If
a state of the soul ceases to vary, its duration would cease to pass"</i>
says Bergson. What happens is that <i>“it is easy not to pay
attention to continuous change, and notice only when it grows large
enough to print to the body a new attitude, and to attention a new
direction. Just then we find that we have changed our state. Really
we are constantly changing, and our states theselves are already
change. (...) And because we close our eyes to the unceasing
variation of every psychological state, we are obliged, when the
change has become so significant that requires our attention, talking
as if a new state had been juxtaposed to precedent. The new one, in
turn, we assume is invariable, and so consecutively and
indefinitely”.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Our
attention is fixed on what is relevant, what more interests, in what
best represents the situation, ie, in the 'guiding ideas', in what
stands out on continuous background of our existence. Each of these
states we perceive and ideas we have, <i>"is just the better lit
point of an unstable area that includes everything we feel, think,
want, everything we ultimately are at a given moment".</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Psychological
time, phenomenal durations of things, are concepts, ideas, percepts;
there is no moment, no time, without mental content: there is no
psychology of nothing. The metric time of clocks is empty, it is a
nothing. Empty time does not exist for us. The moments are our
states, are what we perceive or think. We do not perceive the
continuum of moments of the present but discrete moments that
correspond always to a state, to a feeling, to an idea. We detect, we
sense, we think the difference, the remarkable, not continuity. In
this sense <i>"the idea is a thought stopping; it borns when
thought, instead of continuing his way, pauses or goes back on
itself: the same that the heat arises in the bullet when encounters
an obstacle. But as the heat did not exist before in the bullet, not
the idea was an integral part of the thinking".</i> Thought is
the hidden continuous, while the idea is what appears discrete when
thought, by some form of 'obstacle', what makes a 'stop'.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The
whole world does not exist in our memory, in our past. Not even
close. The world is always present, flowing consciousness. The past
is just a useful trace to the present. <i>"The memory of a
sensation is something able to suggest that sensation, I mean, to
make it reborn, stronger gradually as more attention is fixed on it.
But it is different from the state it suggests, and precisely because
we feel it behind the suggested sensation, we locate in the past the
origin of what we experience. Indeed, the sensation is essentially
present; but the memory that suggests it is presented with that power
of suggestion that is the mark of what is not, of what would still
be. (...) The memory appears at any time doubling perception, it
borns with it, developing at same time and outlasting it because of
its different nature".</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The
memory is a mark that has remained somewhere in the brain of a
present that is past yet, and that the current present
(consciousness) has reignited. The memories provide continuous
information and collaborate with the sensations in generating
'guiding ideas'. They are information that the brain uses with other
information as they are connected in the permanently lit
consciousness circuit. This circuit does not stop to vary and evolve
assimilating new energy inputs from the senses or any other external
and internal environment, physically, chemically, biologically, in a
dynamic equilibrium. <i>"Willingly we represent the attentive
perception as a series of processes that would walk along a single
thread, the object exciting sensations, the sensations giving rise to
ideas, each idea gradually shocking furthermost points of the
intellectual mass. It would be, therefore, a straight running, by
which the spirit would move more and more away from the object, to
never return. We intend, however, that perception is a circuit in
which all elements, including the same perceived object, are kept in
a state of mutual tension as in an electrical circuit, such that each
jerk from the object can't stop enrouting to the depths of the
spirit: always it must return to the object itself".</i> The
brain is a permanently lit circuit that needs the objects and
energies of the world to work.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i>"(...)
The spirit embraces the past, while the body is confined to a present
that constantly begins again. But we only think of the past because
our body retains its mark still present. The impressions made by
objects in the brain remain there, as images on a sensitized plate or
phonograms on phonograph records; the same way that the disc repeats
the melody when you power the device, also raises the brain's memory
when needed jerk occurs at the point on which the printing is
deposited."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In
Sartre's words: <i>"It seems that being is present, everything
is present: the body, the present perception and the past as present
trace in the body, everything is 'in act': as the memory-trace has
not a virtual existence as memory: it is fully current trace. If the
memory resurfaces, it does so in the present, as a result of a
present process".</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Henri
Bergson, </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Memoria y
vida.</i></div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: justify;">Henri Bergson,
</span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: justify;">El alma y el
cuerpo.</i><span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"></span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Sartre, <i>El
ser y la nada.</i></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">
</span></span><br />
<br />
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-13466524340864355762015-08-25T12:51:00.000+02:002015-08-25T12:51:49.260+02:00The states of consciousness<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq7-AeIQm99_cXuUxtV9fJLw0kEyDIAPQLSKe0nCd0FNe2F7kMDCF7c6RIlkFOqx-oR54GUHWgTTK3JdsUHIiYQspYMbS_ONnZ0VLopMNCUyWgyFWSQFm2tGv9a9_uBfWRgpUcAKMchSQ/s1600/wingedhypnos-british-musuem-1866.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq7-AeIQm99_cXuUxtV9fJLw0kEyDIAPQLSKe0nCd0FNe2F7kMDCF7c6RIlkFOqx-oR54GUHWgTTK3JdsUHIiYQspYMbS_ONnZ0VLopMNCUyWgyFWSQFm2tGv9a9_uBfWRgpUcAKMchSQ/s400/wingedhypnos-british-musuem-1866.png" width="316" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Consciousness
has differences in intensity. There are different levels of awareness
and conscience. We can be very activated and concerned at certain
times and in certain situations, and little in others. There are
obvious differences between sleep and relaxation states, on the one
hand, and states of emergency and activation on the other.
Consciousness reaches more lively in times of crisis, when we
hesitate between two or more decisions we know they are important,
where we understand that much is at stake, which can be decisive for
our adjustment, even for our survival, when we choose something
really new, unforeseen, and anticipate possibilities that we had not
thought of. The more we create or decide the future, the stronger
consciousness and the greater intelligence we mobilize.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Moreover,
low activation states of consciousness that are dreams, according to
Bergson, appear when memory and sensations converge. They obey to
something we remember but that is just a feeling, that is 'empty' by
a manner of speaking, that does not have a concrete and real
reference in the world, and there isn't therefore an urgent situation
nor even the need for a more or less adequate response.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"The
remembrance is sharp and accurate, but lifeless inside. The sensation
would find a form on which to set indecision of its contours. The
remembrance would get a subject to fill, load itself, in order to
upgrade itself."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In
dreams what matters is the memory, it is what provides most of the
information to the experience, not the sensation, which is very
blurred. Sensations are more blurred than in wakefulness, but the
basic mechanism would be the same. <i>"In wakefulness the
knowledge we acquire of an object implies a similar operation which
it is performed in the dream. We only perceive the draft of the
thing; this launches an appeal to the memory of the whole thing; and
the complete remembrance, our spirit was not aware of it, takes the
opportunity to throw out. Is this kind of hallucination, inserted in
a real framework, what we realize when we 'see' the thing."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Both
in dreams and in waking, consciousness manifests real impressions
made on the organs of senses and also memories that are recovered.
But what then is the difference between perceiving and dreaming?
Although the mechanism is the same, it should not work exactly in the
same way in dream and in waking.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To
sleep, as we see, is not simply to be isolated from outside world.
Sleep does not close our senses to outside impressions, since many of
them are incorporated into dreams; dream takes away part of the
material from there, as we all have seen sometime. Sleep is not
simply a rest of the higher functions of thought, a suspension of
reasoning. We are not incapable of logic in dreams; dreams have their
own logic, follow their own reasoning. They can even be seen as an
excess of reasoning, of incoherent images, poorly linked ones to
others, without a common nexus that unites and holds them, but
instead they flow much more easily than in waking... associating of
different mode, more labile.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bergson
says that <i>"our life, in the waking state, is a life of work,
even if we do nothing, since at any time we choose, and at any time
we must exclude. Always we choose between our feelings and
sensations, because we chase from our consciousness thousands of
'subjective' feelings that reappear as soon as we fall asleep. We
chose, with extreme precision and delicacy, between our memories,
since we aside all remembrance not conform to our present state. This
choice we make constantly, this constantly renewed adaptation, is the
essential condition of what we call good sense. But election and
adaptation they keep us in a state of uninterrupted 'stress'. We do
not realize at the time, as we do not feel the pressure of the
atmosphere. But eventually we toil. Having good sense is very
fatiguing."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When
we sleep, on the contrary, we really 'do nothing', we do not work at
all, we are unattached to life. Everything is indifferent to us. We
desinterest all. <i>"Sleep is to disinterest. One sleeps on the
exact extent that he is not interested. A mother sleeping next to her
child can not hear thunder, while a sigh of her child awakes her.
Does she really slept for her child? We do not sleep for what
continues interesting us.”</i> We sleep when we forget to focus on
one point, when we stop willing something, <i>"to wake and to
will are one and the same thing."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In
short, <i>"the same faculties are exercised, whether we are
awake, whether we dream, but in one case they are tense and the other
relaxed. Dream is the whole mental life, less stress concentration.
Still we perceive, still we remember, still we reason: perception,
memory and reasoning can abound in the dreamer, because abundance, in
the domain of the spirit, does not mean effort. What requires effort
is 'the precision of fit'."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
instability of dreams, how quickly they develop, and the preference
in them by insignificant memories compared to wakefulness, tend to
confirm that, indeed, the mechanism of dreams and of perceptions is
the same.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In
dreams the same sensation may correspond to very different
information and memories, which we travel very easily from one
content to another, which we would consider very different in the
waking state; and we do it as easily as fast, in seconds, when we
would occupy for days to get to relate all these thoughts awake.
Dreams are usually developed as images, which quickly precipitate,
loosely, since it is a feature of the images that many of them can be
given at once ('in panoramic' says Bergson). In the dream the visual
memory does not have to take up with the visual sense as happens in
the external reality. Almost everything is memory. The images of the
visual memory flow much more freely and can precipitate with dizzying
rapidity. <i>"In waking state, visual memory that serves to
interpret the visual sensation is bound to settle exactly on it; then
continues its development, occupies the same time; in short, the
recognized perception of external events lasts just the same as
them".</i> When is required for some reason 'the precision of
fit', the effort appears. interpretive memory is strained, it pays
attention to life again, goes of the dream finally, it slows down,
<i>"outside events will pattern their flow and decrease their
speed".</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
preference of dreams to insignificant memories are also due to the
inattention and indifference to life which defines in general terms
the dream, indeed the simple fact of recover that attention and that
interest leads us to wake up quickly, it is incompatible with sleep.
This happens when we detect any disturbing external event (the crying
of child to the mother), when we realize that something important is
about to do, or when the logic of the dream itself leads us to wake
up because it is produced any unacceptable situation or incompatible
with our life, which strains our attention instantly. The latter
happens when we dream that we fall from high altitude or a murderer
or a predator is about to catch us, for example. At that moment we
awoke.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sleep
is only compatible with insignificant memories or thoughts. Another
example of the same is that when we try to focus, by some form of
obligation, an activity that we feel uninteresting (a reading, an
exhibition, a movie...) when we get bored, we sleep and our mind
wanders to equally irrelevant content; unless we make a great effort
to regain concentration and get to connect with something
significant... Or said in reverse: when sleep naturally comes, what
we were doing awake no longer seems interesting and we get bored, if
we did not sleep before.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
Bergson says <i>"dreaming ego is a distracted ego, it is
distended. The memories that best harmonize with him are the memories
of distraction, which do not involve the brand of effort".</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At
least once a day, every 24 hours, we go from wakefulness to sleep and
from sleep to waking state again. But also our consciousness
fluctuates in a continuum of intensity. We have a body, variable
itself, we are not 'pure spirits', to put it in the words of Bergson.
Our body, life, follows its own rules. Inevitably we slept, however
interesting is what we are doing; or what normally had little
interest may be sometime will enter intensely in our consciousness.
Sometimes nothing happens in our environment nor is there any reason
to think our memories have been significantly altered and, instead,
our conscious radically change; but we can not find out why. Our
moods and our conscience can be highly variable from one moment to
another.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
we have seen is our consciousness what creates our reality, which is
not given objectively; memories and perceptions are nothing fixed but
quite the opposite. Awareness not only integrates the energy or
stimuli from the external environment but also from the internal
environment, which occur inside the body, in its organs, tissues, its
organic matter, in life processes. The body is terribly unstable,
constantly working to maintain homeostasis. While we must recognize
that some processes or physiological conditions may not manifest in
the states of consciousness, we know, because of our experience,
which many do. So many that we may doubt whether not all, as life and
consciousness, as we've seen following the Bergsonian reasoning, are
inseparable.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: black;">This
is the 'immediate consciousness', as Bergson calls, completely fluid
and continuous consciousness <i>"that is inherent in the inner
life, which feels more than sees; but it feels like a movement, as a
continuous overlay with a constantly receding future"</i>. It is
in this immediate consciousness that 'elan vital' acts, producing the
'impulse of consciousness', which is instinctive and inseparable from
life, and escapes the analysis because of its simplicity. </span>
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: black;">Then
there is the 'reflexive consciousness' <i>''that offers the vision of
our inner life as a state that is going to another state, starting
each of these states at one point, ending in another. Reflexive
consciousness prepares language pathways; it distinguishes, separates
and juxtaposes; It is only confortable with what is defined yet and
with the immobility; it clings to a static conception of reality”.</i>
It is the consciousness that subjects reality to language, we talked
about before, which manifests itself in verbal reasoning, replacing
the immediate and continuous personal experience by discrete
linguistic discourse. </span>
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Reflexive
consciousness reasons with the essentiall of immediate consciousness
through language, in order to retain the moment, to represent it and
argue it to communicate, to give some kind of explanation or
justification of the behavior of oneself to himself and to others...
With this mission, it creates abstract representations with the
language, it relationships what we experience in the successive
presents to attempt to give them a logic and unity beyond their mere
existence.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
language is abstract, the same words can represent different things,
it has a slower time adapting well to the events of reality and
allows to communicate with others, that is, allows to influence other
people and create new situations in the main scope of our action that
is the social. Social groups, of whatever kind, are essentially
sensitive to verbal communication, so as we are each of us
individually. Any action of our communication quickly finds a
reaction of other or the group, while we are always at the
expectation of the actions of others. The social is our playground,
and the main way is language and reflexive consciousness.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Henri
Bergson,<i> L'energie spirituelle.</i></span></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-67816841370494801982015-08-13T11:00:00.000+02:002015-08-13T11:11:04.255+02:00Consciousness, joy, intelligence and society.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiehGndsXq6yDXcyKDO5frn_-c3mvBa6L5EO5SyEIWrRUK1KGispP8bmLS4Xn2wxeq3Kq_MXM1flsX55wiY9WWwz7fxGSED2F_RDHZePSlMN_fobKWzhnw90MdxCA5zuQbaFl_eILkx_Co/s1600/Bergson_1878.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiehGndsXq6yDXcyKDO5frn_-c3mvBa6L5EO5SyEIWrRUK1KGispP8bmLS4Xn2wxeq3Kq_MXM1flsX55wiY9WWwz7fxGSED2F_RDHZePSlMN_fobKWzhnw90MdxCA5zuQbaFl_eILkx_Co/s400/Bergson_1878.jpg" width="329" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Consciousness
is what drives us forward, is what decides, what sets targets, what
defines our fate. And there is a fundamental sign of the achievement
of this goals and satisfaction of our personal motivations, which is
joy. Bergson says: <i>"The joy always announces that life has
triumphed, that has gained ground, that has achieved a victory: any
great joy has a triumphant accent. Wherever joy is, creation is: As
creation is richer, joy is more profound. The mother who watches her
son is joyful, because she is conscious of having created him,
physically and morally. The trader who carries out his business, the
factory owner who sees his industry prosper, is he joyful because of
the money he earns and the notoriety he acquires? Richness and
consideration obviously come much satisfaction he feels, but they
bring pleasure rather than joy, and what he enjoys with true joy is
the feeling of having mounted a company that marches, of having
called something to life. Take exceptional joys, the artist who has
performed his thinking, the wise who has discovered or invented. You
will hear to say that these men work for glory and that they draw
their liveliest joys from admiration that they inspire. Deep mistake!
One holds on praise and honors on the exact extent he is not sure he
succeeded. But one who is sure, absolutely sure, having produced a
viable and durable work, this one has nothing to do with praise and
he feels above the glory, because he is the creator, because he knows
it, and because the joy he experiences with it is a divine joy."</i>
This is about the satisfaction of personal needs of each one, the
feeling of power over the circumstances of life and world in which we
move, the conviction that the world operates according we think, that
events occur as we anticipate. This is the confirmation of the
contents of our consciousness in the reality, and this is surely the
greatest satisfaction we can have.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We
never have any warranty that our knowledges correspond to reality.
Often our 'knowledges' rather than approach us, they take us away
from reality, they constitute a network of ideas and certainties that
we see that reality dismantles again and again, if we test them. Ignorance is not a void of knowledge, but rather
it is the madness of excess of certainties that must be dismantled,
as argued by A. Finkielkraut.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Without
realizing it, anything that happens in reality (in the present) we
turn it into words, in a time frame (past and future) of predefined
and predictable arguments. This is what makes our consciousness. We
articulate a network of fictional representations and thoughts that,
even they try to represent it, they separate us from the simple
reality. We submit reality to the forms of language; so consciousness
works. We strive to narrate, in past and future, the reality of the
present. We subordinate ourselves to our narrative world, we take
ourselves and our ideas as the measure of things. And 'the more
exclusively the man takes himself, as a subject, as a measure of
things, more far equivocal is the measurement', as Heidegger says.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This
reason is not empirical, disregards the immediate reality. This is a
wrong consciousness. It forgets the concrete, the real, the
objective, taking just the minimum to keep 'reasoning', it has a
tendency to deal just gross generalities, to subjetivize in excess
and quickly lose the measure of its object. To no question itself.
Holding on to the apparent, going back and forth between the nearby
and common ideas is where resides the error, in the sense of
aimlessly wandering through the world of easy ideas and alleged
knowledge, creating 'reasons' without real referents. This is the
source of the errors that disfigure and hide reality. It happens when
we put words to facts, when we create representations that replace
them, by giving them a narrative texture, just happens when we
'reason'.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiygsybbJrrZMpfCzkCIJpO1yuRfLUqbKn_Kmo3JtcwuYVbToG5GIi_QZVKCDXTEfGbiy69zpIf0ePUcRJuhy2PJjoNMSwhVnow5_FvBKy8z5lzCbpXxbjJon2GwrKhTzIychckpbpAFrc/s1600/Alfractal-apolonnian-circles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiygsybbJrrZMpfCzkCIJpO1yuRfLUqbKn_Kmo3JtcwuYVbToG5GIi_QZVKCDXTEfGbiy69zpIf0ePUcRJuhy2PJjoNMSwhVnow5_FvBKy8z5lzCbpXxbjJon2GwrKhTzIychckpbpAFrc/s1600/Alfractal-apolonnian-circles.jpg" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Consciousness
is, in turn, the intelligence that guides us. We will be able to
achieve our goals, to anticipate the future, to understand the world
(and be happy) based on our intelligence, on the adequacy of our
knowledge to the situation and on our ability to acquire new
knowledges when they do not produce satisfactory results.
Consciousness can be smart or not, or smarter or less. We are largely
dependent on the knowledge we already have, our past experiences, and
we will have to show an alert reaction and a more intense awareness
to new situations that our knowledge does not allow an adequate
response; we will must be more aware to details and to all the
information that concurs in the given situation.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It
is in society where our conscience and our intelligence are mainly
tested, so they are pooled with other individuals. Only in society
full satisfaction can be achieved since our behavior mainly occurs in
social situations. <i>"The society, which is the pooling of
individual energies, benefits from the efforts of anyone and turns
easier the effort of anyone. It can only survive if subordinates the
individual; it can only make progress if left him: conflicting
demands, which would have to be reconciled. If the individual forgets
himself, society in turn forgets its destination; one and the other,
in a state of somnambulism, made and remade endlessly round the same
circle, instead of walking straight forward, with a larger social
efficiency and a more complete individual freedom. Only human
societies have their eyes fixed to both goals to reach. Fighting with
themselves and in war with each other, they try visibly, by friction
and collision, round off angles, erode antagonisms, eliminate
contradictions, make individual wills were inserted without deforming
the social will, and that different societies enter in turn, without
losing their originality and independence, in a wider society:
disturbing and soothing sight, one can not contemplate without saying
that here too, through countless obstacles, life works identifying
and integrating to obtain as much as possible, the richer variety,
the highest qualities of invention and effort."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
others are the most relevant for our future, what most occupies our
attention and our thoughts, what we must further discover how do they
work. Society yet gives us the resources to understand and control
the physical world; the important thing is to understand people,
which are the most complex, unpredictable and what should concern us
most.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Society
is a confrontation of consciousness. Some are more shared than the
others. It sometimes happens, unfortunately, that societies are rigid
and impose the dominant reason, and people is subjected to them and
loses his freedom, his ability to decide, his creativity; they are
authoritarian societies or groups that despise the individual and
threate the individual conscience. This are bad places and bad times
to live. They confuse the reason (some specific reasons), the
arguments of consciousness (some concrete consciences) with reality
and absolute truth. In the background, simply they do not understand
that they do not understand the mechanism of consciousness, but they
seem to only understand the mental contents, which are its outcome;
they blindly confuse their subjectivity with reality. Without
possibility of reconciliation these societies lose their orientation
as soon individuals forget themselves, as Bergson says. Individuals
and the group fall in a state of 'somnambulism' and do nothing but
roam around endlessly about the same issues that do not lead to
anything new, to any kind of progress. There is no progress; subjects
are slaves of goals that are not theirs, their consciences are
alienated. The wills of individuals are deformed, they have
surrendered to the official truths. The progress that should arise
from the confrontation individuation-integration no longer exists. No
effort, no intelligence, no creation... And all this because of the
confusion between consciousness as action and consciousness as
knowledge, by reducing the first to the second. We are not always
able, admittedly, to understand the reasoning rather than as absolute
knowledge and not as a process of personal consciousness, as action,
as a motor of change and evolution that it is.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our
thoughts and knowledges, by themselves, do not let us know what we
usually think we know about reality. They are only a small part of it
and very influenced by our individual expectations. We do not
perceive every moment all reality, or remember all our knowledge. On
the contrary: we are terribly selective; we just remember, perceive
and update a small bunch of information that we believe is useful in
that specific circumstance which we live. We ignore the rest; we hide
it.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_AN-lVwd-CfxpHK1tHdYwCvwcUqAaSYx6m19CmHlTn38yvnpxALjC-kPWMJJmtSWlNu3Xtk97hEdRBo4TJMTFvVv1VTB3N6eyPI5ibr9nW47TrB6F1dco62pnY3FIQXIZ8fIoojtDQaQ/s1600/eye1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_AN-lVwd-CfxpHK1tHdYwCvwcUqAaSYx6m19CmHlTn38yvnpxALjC-kPWMJJmtSWlNu3Xtk97hEdRBo4TJMTFvVv1VTB3N6eyPI5ibr9nW47TrB6F1dco62pnY3FIQXIZ8fIoojtDQaQ/s400/eye1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our
consciousness is attention to life, expectation. And as we know in
psychology, attention is selective, only attend to one thing at a
time. We reduce the infinite potential information to unique,
concrete and present one. "It's the brain that gives us the
service to keep our attention fixed on life; and life looks ahead;
returns back only to the extent that the past can help to illuminate
and prepare for the future. Live, to the spirit, is essentially to
concentrate on the act to comply. Then it is to be inserted into the
things through a mechanism that will extract of consciousness all
that is usable for action, at the risk of obscuring most of the rest.
Such is the role of the brain in memory operation: it does not work
to preserve the past, but to cover it first, then to make transparent
what is practically useful."</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Consciousness
is a mechanism that makes the time, a mechanism which acts in the
eternal present and creates the illusion of past and future, cause
and effect. It is a mechanical which plots ideas about what may have
happened and what could happen, but it has almost no information of
its own performance, which does not capture the thinking itself, the
act that defines us as human. It does not capture the moment, nor,
therefore, the become of the successive moments, his true causality;
inevitably it refers to past and future, their own inventions. Reason
always justifies itself. No one should therefore take himself too
seriously... only the necessary.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Henri
Bergson,<i> L'energie spirituelle.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-28845113177676830462015-07-31T16:36:00.001+02:002015-07-31T16:37:29.569+02:00Consciousness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPTtXayMyWFABQzF5SwxcT_sPRA4nDivP-f4NaU8XhkjHOL4tDpp-rMOzAiFzo9eDq9nuDYogV1fkvRWBm2it1fE6jhmDMmhzgMj8tXB-iHG8mIBoeuv2M_bRro3RjZ1JXyBnydUuGZg/s1600/eye3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPTtXayMyWFABQzF5SwxcT_sPRA4nDivP-f4NaU8XhkjHOL4tDpp-rMOzAiFzo9eDq9nuDYogV1fkvRWBm2it1fE6jhmDMmhzgMj8tXB-iHG8mIBoeuv2M_bRro3RjZ1JXyBnydUuGZg/s400/eye3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We
all have an idea of what consciousness is, but it is not easy to give
a definition. Consciousness would be something that every moment is
present in our minds in our experience... You can say that it is a
working knowledge of the world around us and ourselves, we feel it as
exclusively ours and we use it to make personal decisions. We
understand that consciousness is something that defines us as
individuals. It is knowledge about ourselves and our situation at
present, which puts us in the world and directs our behavior.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Memory
is a necessary condition of consciousness, because without memory
there is no knowledge nor therefore consciousness. Bergson said that
memory is indeed the most obvious feature of consciousness:
<i>"Consciousness means first memory. Memory may be not wide; it
may embrace only a small part of the past; it may not hold more than
what just happened; but memory is there, or then consciousness is
not. A consciousness that does not retain anything of his past, which
continually forgets itself, would perish and be reborn every moment."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Consciousness
is the updating memory in the present. It does not have to be wide
but there must be some memory, even if just of what happened right
now, for there to be consciousness. If nothing is retained there is
no a moment of conscience; There exists no consciousness nor even the
'moment' (the experience of the moment), which come to be the same
thing.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
more than the actual content of the memories of the past itself,
consciousness is the action performed in the present to bring to mind
such content; it is to make present in thought the past; it is an
action. The actions of consciousness are always in the present, as
any other actions; it can not be otherwise. But the action of
consciousness is oriented to the future, and this is fundamental.
What can happen in the more or less immediate future is the driving
force of consciousness, is what attracts it and fixes it to ones or
others aspects of the world around us. Consciousness leans forward,
directs attention to what we think will happen, to the different
possibilities; it keeps us expectant about what may happen.
Consciousness is, in short, the action I perform in the present
updating what I know of the past in expectation of what is going to
come (future). It is the action I perform in the present to produce
some practical thoughts for coping and influence the possible events
around me.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimt06EnkpSiHzTgLBiyZmnwjPkn-IHVL8S-Rssbgwrql1ta11Nq-7kiS6rRFroZ7Go6rchYu5xa13CBr6UFxCMiTGNVM0Y_3xh5oFy2-3AwtsyW50NNdFrJKbY4Hkvd4HjdqvbLWgN5Tc/s1600/Bergson6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimt06EnkpSiHzTgLBiyZmnwjPkn-IHVL8S-Rssbgwrql1ta11Nq-7kiS6rRFroZ7Go6rchYu5xa13CBr6UFxCMiTGNVM0Y_3xh5oFy2-3AwtsyW50NNdFrJKbY4Hkvd4HjdqvbLWgN5Tc/s400/Bergson6.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bergson
said: <i>"All consciousness is to anticipate the future.
Consider the direction of your mind at any time: will find that deals
with what is, but especially in view of what it will be. Attention is
an expectation, and there is no consciousness without some attention
to life. The future is there; calls us or rather draws us to him:
this continuous traction, which takes us forward on the path of time,
it also causes us to act continuously. All action is an overlap with
the future."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
attracts us, which continuously draws our attention, it is what will
happen. We continuously anticipate the future, and we do it based on
what we know-understand-believe that happened or is happening. What
is most immediate and most important, what it is more 'urgent', is
what attracts us. Consciousness is the attention to the life and to
the future, and is the basic mechanism of our psyche and our behavior
(and our survival).</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any
of our actions reflects an assumption we make about the future, comes
on and overlies it, determines it from what we know and what we
decide.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"To
hold what is not yet, to anticipate what still is not, this is the
first function of consciousness. Will not be at present, if present
would be reduced to the mathematical instant. That instant is nothing
more than the limit, purely theoretical, which separates the past
from the future; in fact it can be conceived, never perceived; when
we think we catch it, it is away from us. What in fact we perceive is
true thickness duration that consists of two parts: our recent past
and our immediate future. On this past we are supported, on the
future we are tilted; to support and to tilt are so characteristic of
a conscious being."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mental
actions, as of all actions, are performed in the pure present, in the
exact boundary between the past and the future, but the results of
these actions, mental contents, refer to the past and the future,
more or less close to this pure present, but never exactly coincide
with this zero moment, that is the moment of action and yet not of
the outcome, a kind of blind spot of time and psyche.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Every
moment our consciousness makes our personal way of being in the
world, creates 'a thickness in time', creates a personal past and
future beyond the imperceptible instant, creates a singularity of the
possible interpretations of the world extended in time.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If
consciousness is attention to life, have we to understand that all
living things could have consciousness? Bergson asks. All living
things have life by definition, have a past and a future, a cause and
an effect on the actions they take in the present interacting with
their environment. In man consciousness is unquestionably linked to
the brain: but beware! it does not follow from this that the
existence of a brain is a necessary condition of consciousness, as
the stomach is not a necessary condition for digestion into simple
beings who, in fact, have no stomach or even differentiated organs,
such as the amoeba, although they digest food.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
digestion involves not only the participation of the stomach,
consciousness does not involve only the participation of the brain.
In both cases it seems that also involves simpler elements and vital
processes, beyond any specific organ. In fact, everything that is
alive may be aware: consciousness is coextensive with life, Bergson
argues. In the lower living beings, which do not have brain, would
have to be some form of consciousness, but surely very different from
ours, which would be confused with the simplest biological processes
of life of these organisms. Would be <i>"a diffuse, confused,
reduced to little consciousness, though not reduced to nothing",</i>
says Bergson.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: black;">In
addition to the brain there are much more primitive nerve centers and
pathways, other tissues and organic masses, in man and in the
simplest living things, which certainly interact with the external
environment, which retain some information and act in certain
circumstances and at certain elements of the environment. This would
be a form of consciousness, rudimentary compared to man, but
consciousness, so it has the fundamental elements of it. </span>
</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
same in humans. The brain is not an isolated organ from the body, on
the contrary it is an integrative organ of the rest of the body
functioning while integrating energy and stimuli from the external
medium. Our body functions as a whole, and therefore our
consciousness works with all of it, not just with the brain.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAYLmqVpDoJT-Zyp3tr3HaW-biG4IF0Tex68MCc8GIesgE6NMd3DIBh2RmA5Rg1IhuWJYGs8LcgqmSPk06BaJvFYt4XPIS471ilrzZ4sNQppOwnF2TJ3szrWZL6CoO-8pOMsIAlE0ufOY/s1600/Bergson4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAYLmqVpDoJT-Zyp3tr3HaW-biG4IF0Tex68MCc8GIesgE6NMd3DIBh2RmA5Rg1IhuWJYGs8LcgqmSPk06BaJvFYt4XPIS471ilrzZ4sNQppOwnF2TJ3szrWZL6CoO-8pOMsIAlE0ufOY/s400/Bergson4.jpeg" width="243" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Consciousness,
as we have seen, has the function of decision and choice. In all
living beings consciousness is what, from knowledge of the past and
anticipating the future, choose the action to take in every moment of
the present. <i>"To choose need to think about what can be done
and remember the consequences of what has been done; is needed to
anticipate and to remember"</i>. This occurs at different levels
of complexity, depending on the complexity of organisms, of course.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Living
beings choose, which is the same as saying that they create their own
future, says Bergson. With their decisions they influence the future.
Consciousness creates a <i>"zone of uncertainty"</i> around
the living being. The more consciousness, the greater the uncertainty
(or freedom) of being, the greater the 'creativity'. Consciousness is
the ability to choose in a situation in which the subject attends and
responds individually based on his experience; somehow is the ability
to break the determinism of the outside world, by activity of
internal environment, to define how the future will go.</span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Henri
Bergson<i>, L'energie spirituelle.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-648667971218782812015-06-30T17:04:00.000+02:002015-06-30T17:04:35.069+02:00Henri Bergson<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">'Others
will dig even deeper. Under these joys and these sadnesses that can
ultimately be translated into words, they will catch something that
has nothing in common with words, certain rhythms of life and
breathing that are more interior to man than his innermost feelings,
alive law being, variable with each person, of his depression and
exaltation, of his sorrows and hopes. By releasing, exacerbating this
music, they will impose it to our attention; they will make us insert
ourselves into it involuntarily, as walkers entering a dance. And
through it they will lead us to shake too, completely inside of us,
something that has been waiting the moment to vibrate.'</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1JFc4uH7QHGy9oXfFrSqeqdMQlWn8M33M-zJQPyX7bzEI0fdEZstcg62tV1OvrWZ994B-nUWPieoypS77btUnbKjhYWqt2nlTi6D0Zta3DnJnTwWDFYJeF-4eOhwCuH15Y4ENRx4WlI/s1600/Bergson2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1JFc4uH7QHGy9oXfFrSqeqdMQlWn8M33M-zJQPyX7bzEI0fdEZstcg62tV1OvrWZ994B-nUWPieoypS77btUnbKjhYWqt2nlTi6D0Zta3DnJnTwWDFYJeF-4eOhwCuH15Y4ENRx4WlI/s400/Bergson2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Henri
Bergson<i>, L'energie spirituelle</i></span></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-18815058007546499542015-06-04T09:26:00.000+02:002015-06-04T09:26:15.194+02:00The Splendor of the Fruits of the Trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLdXKyiM_zFoPq2p9-rj1FlSdpu2N9kVRB5diA3Gfofu4Cr-XPRiQ9Un7S1aNypa9n_ey7DaG2D-auTmLx3LzOCYyg481wwjYAANPhvtKaNyRP2biASEYF2in7FbxUykoE8TEOOV8yiSE/s1600/Gabriel3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLdXKyiM_zFoPq2p9-rj1FlSdpu2N9kVRB5diA3Gfofu4Cr-XPRiQ9Un7S1aNypa9n_ey7DaG2D-auTmLx3LzOCYyg481wwjYAANPhvtKaNyRP2biASEYF2in7FbxUykoE8TEOOV8yiSE/s400/Gabriel3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
Arabi calls deity or spirit is not static quite the contrary. In fact
it is as variable as our mind or our soul, which is terribly labile.
Moreover, our soul 'moves' as much as do, because 'the spirit of the
universe' moves it, he says. <i>'Divinity itself 'travels'. And it
does so by way of life-giving 'blow', breath, giving live and keeping
all creation as a great blower without location or form. But the
divine journey is not, however, a route or a linear displacement,
like the creatures experience, but a renewed creation at every
moment, a sort of pumping or beating, than a moment after another, as
a heart present everywhere and nowhere, keep alive and awake the
cosmos'</i>. So clever summarizes Carlos Varona Narvión, from the
meticulous knowledge of the translator, in the introduction to <i>El esplendor de los frutos del viaje</i>.</span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There
is always in creation (and all creation is creation of our mind) a
mixture of body and spirit that is where it reaches the 'blow'. We
are body and spirit. The blow reaches each of us, our body, and
manifests in our mind, pumping, breathing it. It is said that the
spirit is everywhere, lighting and covering all the created, because
the air covers us all and creates everything in our psyche. This is
how 'Allah' illuminates the universe by his blow, renewing the
creation (our thoughts) at every moment by the blow at every cycle of
our breath.</span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">'God'
is a pulse that reaches the entire cosmos. God has no form but is
everywhere shaping the world in the minds of us thinking beings. 'It
is a center of the universe that is everywhere and circumference
nowhere' style to Leibniz says Carlos Varona.</span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2B9yCMq9g1AX-jkk16bDpUqaynsTy8SGS-Qpej5AV58bKLgQhM4_cjgPABzT7As775TK6vV6cJJInV8kM8sT6jUlt0fZ3onW_h3iQVzXU-qM70EHQ3X5IiZ2DmiGMPT47CZ8lcH45wg/s1600/Gabriel5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2B9yCMq9g1AX-jkk16bDpUqaynsTy8SGS-Qpej5AV58bKLgQhM4_cjgPABzT7As775TK6vV6cJJInV8kM8sT6jUlt0fZ3onW_h3iQVzXU-qM70EHQ3X5IiZ2DmiGMPT47CZ8lcH45wg/s400/Gabriel5.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">'The
origin of life is movement. It can not be immobility, then it would
be back to its source, which is the absence. Never ever ceases trip,
nor the upper nor the lower world, and even the divine truths do not
complete their journey, coming and going. (...) The movement at every
moment of the four elements, and created beings, changes and the
transformations generated with each breath, as well as the journey of
the mind, both as laudable as reprehensible, trip of blows of who
breathes, and of the looks of seen things in waking or sleeping, as
the crossing from one world to another with its weighting, all this
is definitely a trip to the human mind. Never in all eternity we
cease to travel, from the moment of our conception, and the first
creation of our foundation. When in front of you appears a house, you
affirm that this is the end of your journey, while, in reality, it
opens another path to you. In fact, when you see a house, you say,
"This is my goal!" But it just come, you do not delay in
starting again.' </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">(<i>El esplendor de los frutos del viaje</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">,
Chapter 3)</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our
minds, along with everything that they creates, do not stop
'traveling'. Truths, even the 'divine', are not static, but vary
continuously as much as our head produces. Changes are generated with
each breath: in thoughts, morally good or morally bad (<i>'both as
laudable as reprehensible'</i>), in perception and dreams (<i>'the
looks of things seen in waking or sleeping'</i>), in our will and our
motivations, the <i>'houses'</i> that have to safeguard us in a
stable environment, we believe, but just achieved they fade away to
open new ways into previously unforeseen goals... The ideas and
experiences, by nature, by definition, they come and go.</span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>'Therefore,
there is no immobility in this world, but their movement is constant;
succeeding the day and night, as do thoughts, states and forms, by
alternating, according to the divine truths.'</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>The
breath is air and spirit. It is spirit when it manifests in our mind,
but is physically the air of sky. Depending on how it blows this air
is manifested in one way or another in us. So Arabi distinguishes
different 'skies' or 'divine names' which are a kind of 'celestial'
archetypes through which the first essence, 'Allah', reveales in all
its creation in general and especially in our minds. Thus our mental
states and our experiences take shape, evolve and change. (These are
the "seven skies", each with its guardian angel who prints
their own mental states and knowledge in us, of the Koran, but they
also appear in Christianity, see for example Eckhart.)</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>'Divine
truths descend on the divine name the merciful, as well as on the
caller's name to repentance, and the merciful, the provider, the
donor, the avenger, and all other names. They also act which falls on
you of gift and forecasting, revenge, repentance, forgiveness and
mercy.'</i> (Chapter 5)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbkdjAglR-ODjRpRjJPCeyzgodzGCU9GmI8PFG6Fn7J1nHl-7y4SQzRZzrUTFMx5_d1J47SxTg73VzsrzMErKGLV1Fnuv24g-z0Pt0zTOt2YAmniGS3gbU-hW_-AyXQKuI-QPlIHiebI/s1600/Gabriel6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbkdjAglR-ODjRpRjJPCeyzgodzGCU9GmI8PFG6Fn7J1nHl-7y4SQzRZzrUTFMx5_d1J47SxTg73VzsrzMErKGLV1Fnuv24g-z0Pt0zTOt2YAmniGS3gbU-hW_-AyXQKuI-QPlIHiebI/s400/Gabriel6.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.7cm; text-align: justify;">From
this basic configuration of the universe Arabi infers the attitude we
should keep to behave in an appropriate way in life: </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.7cm; text-align: justify;">'The faithful
should use on his side thought and reflection, so differentiate into
the way, which the divine law will forces, and where happiness
resides, between the journey towards Him, in Him and from Him. He
must also discern in all these journeys both the law imposes him as
not, what it is the duty to walk on earth for the lawful, the travel
trade of worldly lucre and other similar gears, or the travel of the
breath itself, with its inspiration and expiration. This is, in
effect, as no imposed or not determined by law, but is its physical
constitution which decides.'</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.7cm; text-align: justify;"> (Chapter 6)</span><br />
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In
this connection we can distinguish two groups of people, Arabi said.
<i>'The travelers in Him are divided into two groups: the first is
that of those who travel in Him by the thoughts and the mind, and
have deviated from the path, not finding as a guide in their search
than his reason. These are the philosophers, and those who are in
this aspect. The second group consists of those who travel with Him,
the group of the messengers and prophets, that of the elect among
such saints, what are the men of Sufism.' </i>(Chapter 7)</span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All
persons we travel by pure physical nature 'in Him'. But only a few
get to understand enough to adapt and travel 'with Him' in fact.
Putting on his side, carried away by his movements, knowing them.</span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ibn
Arabi: <i>El esplendor de los frutos del viaje</i>. Edición de Carlos Varona
Narvión. Siruela. Madrid. 2008.</span></span></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-67256665601903727342015-05-15T17:09:00.001+02:002015-05-15T17:26:10.814+02:00Arabi & Lispector<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">Ibn
Arabi thought that the reality we perceive each of us is renewed
every moment, 'the world' that we perceive is born again at every
breath, he says, as we breathe 'the blowing of God'.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgLyhUS9WJ9yv3sKL3O29SmDhrZzr2Lf-3ByklFVfY3_3yfX-r0HecjMpI-P2OyrnexpFpkWY7u5HwUQwRs8KmTLGPs-4jaCl7JkiWSWp9d00m2e3KKCUTZKGzjytfcSEuhiNmHFulWk/s1600/Arabi7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgLyhUS9WJ9yv3sKL3O29SmDhrZzr2Lf-3ByklFVfY3_3yfX-r0HecjMpI-P2OyrnexpFpkWY7u5HwUQwRs8KmTLGPs-4jaCl7JkiWSWp9d00m2e3KKCUTZKGzjytfcSEuhiNmHFulWk/s400/Arabi7.jpg" width="280" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">According
to him the air insufflates blows of thought. Our ideas are 'forms'
that take the blows. And the flow of our consciousness is merely the
result of the succession of these murmurs or blows in time.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
the breath itself is empty of content: it provides the flow, the
progression over time of the act of thinking, not the specific
purpose of thought, which is a matter of 'receptacle' that we are
each of us.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"'God'
is as light of a glass that veils and tints the look with its own
color. Colorless by itself, it presents you colored to illustrate
what is your reality when compared with your Lord. If you say that
light is green because glass is of that color, you tell the truth and
senses testify to this. If you say that is not green nor has any
color, following which tells you good sense, you are also telling the
truth and thus give witness to the evidence of a healthy intellect."</i></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Glass
is the person and his knowledge and conditionings. Everyone tints
with his personal experience the pure light of the intellect. An
opaque glass and personality give a color that stains all, a
monochrome mode of seeing the world. More transparent glass and
personality are brighter and better show forms (ideas) of the world
in its diversity, better reveals the reality.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"The
color of the water is the color of its container"</i>. Insists
the Sufi master, and continues: <i>"The works of anybody
professing any religion, who only praises the divinity present in his
faith and remains steady in it, return to him, and he will not be
praising nothing but himself. Indeed, to praise a work is to praise
the author of the work, being it lovely or not. So, deity that adores
who profess a religion is his own work, designed to himself. The
praise he addresses to what he loves is actually a compliment to
himself. Therefore criticizes what others love. He would not do that
if he was equanimous."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
thought of someone is the reality as himself. Is the reality that he
produces, whether it be of a religious or any other content. Praise
you make of any element of the world is the praise of the way you
have to see that aspect of the world.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This
is the difference between event and content. We bring the contents
which are the result of our personal experience and knowledge. The
event is not: we have no control on our thinking activity, its flow,
we do not decide to think more or less, in one direction or another,
it just happens. It's nothing individually created but is given to
us.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Knowledge
of thoughts is our personal creation of the world. The act of
thinking, however, is a reality that is beyond our knowledge and that
at a time subjugates it: is 'the tension of divinity' or 'the breath
of God', says Arabi.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68bpqNlA636D9oETruZfFEtOfEmNoN-gEXm5tRFHzeL79IZbDGAByK1SfFG7MhwWAw79DnwArBnMb_y0IFiDHhMQTkWIYIq_pNaE7FLoqksX-PqxcjBXwpse16GqRxh4BACLVWIguJFc/s1600/Al+gold+on+paper..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68bpqNlA636D9oETruZfFEtOfEmNoN-gEXm5tRFHzeL79IZbDGAByK1SfFG7MhwWAw79DnwArBnMb_y0IFiDHhMQTkWIYIq_pNaE7FLoqksX-PqxcjBXwpse16GqRxh4BACLVWIguJFc/s400/Al+gold+on+paper..jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">The
contents of our thoughts are association of ideas, trial and error,
speculation... about reality. The act of thinking is a reality in
itself, however, so immediate reality and so veiled to our knowledge
that it has always been associated with God or 'divinity', not only
in the case of Arabi but in most of the philosophical and religious
traditions.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our
Sufi says that 'divinity' is the individualization of universal
Spirit or Live in things, while the correlative term 'humanity' is
applied to the receptacle are people of this Life or Spirit...</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
divine breath is the starting material of the forms of the world,
that is, of the ideas we have of the world, of thought. 'God' holds
the world's knowledge in the divine breath, somehow keeps it in a
tension, until we manifest it in ideas through blow energy, which
generates the movement in our mind. The blow releases this energy and
ideas take form conditioned by the personal situation of each
individual, but is the breath that initiates and maintains the action
of thinking.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
world to us success in the breath, thoughts about the world hosts in
the breath. Breath and thought, act and content, mind and world
acquire an inseparable intimate connection. So, in short <i>"who
wants to know the divine breath must acquire knowledge of the world,
he who knows himself knows his Lord"</i>, says Arabi.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
breath releases the knowledge in a kind of renewal of creation: when
acting creates knowledge, creates reality. What happens, however, it
is that <i>"nobody has the science of this divine power. The man
is not aware that at each divine breath 'he is not, and then he is'
even"</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Blows
are that: comings of thought to our consciousness, so that each one
appear to replace the current until then, comings from those normally
we are unconscious because they themselves have us abstracted in
their contents: we must be aware of the awareness (meta-awareness) to
detect the flow of their succession.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">* * *
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Blow
happens over time and simply can not be controlled or predicted. Blow
is the assault of time that we can not do more than fit.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Clarice
Lispector says: <i>"I am a little afraid: afraid to surrender,
because the next moment is the unknown. Is the next moment made by
myself? Or it is made by itself? We make it together with breathing.
And with the poise of a bullfighter in the arena."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFvNP31sjRB4_WnZNKeI2CMxWfD2rkksBwy-TuXw97FRuetkMFC2AB1ZgTiMsBChuNzLWXe6S6RgUkIHM9kf17FChC0gfttd5HCnQoBycOZfPl7a8Lf22_eZ1trmytdAaeBAL_DSIrUw/s1600/lispector5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFvNP31sjRB4_WnZNKeI2CMxWfD2rkksBwy-TuXw97FRuetkMFC2AB1ZgTiMsBChuNzLWXe6S6RgUkIHM9kf17FChC0gfttd5HCnQoBycOZfPl7a8Lf22_eZ1trmytdAaeBAL_DSIrUw/s400/lispector5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">The
moments of thought are ephemeral; when we are aware of them, if we
are, they have become a new moment; and are ethereal, as breath air
that accompanies them: </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">"I tell you: I am trying to capture
the fourth dimension of time-yet that such fugitive no longer exists
because it has become a new instant-yet it now does not exist yet. I
want to take possession of of the 'is' of the thing. These moments
that take place in the air I breathe, as fireworks explode mute in
space. I want to have the atoms of the time. And I want to capture
the present which, by its nature, is forbidden to me; the present
eludes me, the present time runs away, the present time is always me
in present time. (...) And there is the 'is' of itself in the moment.
I want to get my 'is'."</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
instant is the 'is' of the thought thing, and at the same time is the
'is' of me that I think.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"The
instant-yet is a firefly that flashes on and off. The present is the
moment when the wheel of a car at high speed minimally touches the
ground. And the part of the wheel that still has not touched, will
touch in the immediate future that absorbs present instant and makes
it past. I, alive and sparkling as instants, turn on and off. (...)
More than an instant I want its fluence."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Instants
and moments flow into our consciousness.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
now is pure reality; past and future are actually just thought,
simple psychology.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"What
I say is pure present and this book ('Aqua viva') is a straight line
in space. It is always current. (...) If I say 'I have lived' or 'I
will live' is present because I say it now ."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I'm
a concomitant being: I bring together past time, the present and the
future, while beating in the ticking of the clocks."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I
am in the midst of shouting and swarming. And it is subtle as the
most intangible reality. Meanwhile time is what it lasts a thought."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Breathing
is what patterns time and, therefore, thought.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"The
world has no visible order and I have only the order of breath. I let
happen myself."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I
am writing at the exact time itself. I develop just in the actual. I
speak today -not yesterday or tomorrow-, but today and in this exact
and perishable instant. My little and framed freedom joins me to the
freedom of the world; but what is a window but the air framed by
squads?"</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ncp9fY57pobwsa__2CpE_3rH8MYQ4vNtLc472MVDsqcomXMKVz4HebVXPw5tToMuDOicHj-w1sQp8XIIeZVhlnT3bhc5OJ7QbBYHWx6G7js9m2WnF-OnVWmNdBAfth69_iKqX84UcAs/s1600/lispector-26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ncp9fY57pobwsa__2CpE_3rH8MYQ4vNtLc472MVDsqcomXMKVz4HebVXPw5tToMuDOicHj-w1sQp8XIIeZVhlnT3bhc5OJ7QbBYHWx6G7js9m2WnF-OnVWmNdBAfth69_iKqX84UcAs/s400/lispector-26.jpg" width="283" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">You
are, more than you think. The flow of time is of existences more than
of thoughts. Or of existences beyond thoughts. Too often words fail
us to translate our states and existences into thoughts.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"There
are many things to say I do not know how to say. Words fail me. But I
refuse to invent new ones. The existing ones have to say what you get
mean and what is forbidden. And I guess what is forbidden. If there
were strength. Beyond thought there are no words. You are. (...) In
this land of 'you are' I'm pure crystalline ecstasy. You are. I am."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I
see the fury of visceral impulses, tortured viscera guide me. I do
not like what I just wrote; but I'm compelled to accept the whole
paragraph because it has happened to me. My essence is unconscious of
itself and so I obey blindly."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Now
is an instant.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>It
is yet another now.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>And
other. My effort: now bring the future until yet now. I move into my
deepest instincts blindly fulfilled."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
objective world, the pure reality of the present, we call it God. We
have always called God. All mystics and philosophers have always
done, traditionally, from the most ancient times, not only Arabi.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"(...)
I know that God is the world. It is what exists. I pray to what
exists? It is not dangerous to approach to what exists. The deep
prayer is a meditation on nothing. It is a dry and electrical contact
with oneself, an impersonal oneself."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Reality
simply exists and escapes us, it is veiled. It is the hidden,
invisible, omnipresent and timeless truth: These are the qualities of
God and yet are the qualities of air, blow, 'pneuma'. </span>
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I'm
breathing. Up and down. Up and down. What excites me most is that I
do not see things yet exist. The truth is somewhere, but it's useless
to think. I'll not find out but I live by it."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I
hear the hollow beating of time. It is the world that forms silently.
If I hear is because I exist before the formation of the time. 'I am'
is the world. A world without time. My conscience is now light and it
is air. The air has no place or time. The air is the non-place where
everything will exist. What I'm writing is music of the air. The
formation of the world. Gradually comes what will be. What will be
already it is. The future is forward and backward and sideways. The
future is what has always existed and will always exist. (...) The
first flower borns in the air. The ground floor, that is earth, is
formed. The rest is air and the rest is slow fire in perpetual
mutation. Does not the word 'life' exist because there is no time?
But there is the beating. And my existence begins to exist. Does the
time begin then?"</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
world is born and dies for us at every breath: it is renewed,
breathes.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"It
has occurred to me suddenly that it is not necessary to have order to
live. There is no pattern to follow, and there isn't even the pattern
itself. I am born.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>I'm
not ready to talk about 'he' or 'she'. I demonstrate 'that'. 'That'
is a universal law. Birth and death. Birth. Death. Birth is like a
breath of the world."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
eludes reason. It is latent. Even if scientifically proved, perhaps
common sense would not capture it. <i>"When my existence and the
existence of the world are no longer sustainable by reason, then I'm
loose and I follow a latent truth. Do I recognize the truth if it was
found?"</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidp1ncf0RjQh4s7lKQ77HX80GpBO9hXkytnKyd3kwHcvq4loAkR-akJ2nOYdgGDc6HuRaZnH74lQECwE8ih5pys5jxiRhy9V52dg8ACYW6ikzVAMZoSmNLxHxmffSHOp0lPBJ7OR-_hpo/s1600/Lispector3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidp1ncf0RjQh4s7lKQ77HX80GpBO9hXkytnKyd3kwHcvq4loAkR-akJ2nOYdgGDc6HuRaZnH74lQECwE8ih5pys5jxiRhy9V52dg8ACYW6ikzVAMZoSmNLxHxmffSHOp0lPBJ7OR-_hpo/s320/Lispector3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 0.7cm;">The
breath is a rhythm, a beat, music.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Regarding
the music, after played where does it go? The music just has of
concrete the instrument. Far beyond the thought I have a musical
background. But still beyond is the beating heart. So the deepest
thought is a beating heart."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
air carries the breath and it creates the time in our thinking when
the wind hits our soul.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"That
open air, that wind hitting me in the soul of the face and leaves it
anxious imitating a distressing ecstasy new every time, again and
always, every time immersion into something bottomless where I fall
always, falling steadily until death and to achieve finally silence.
Oh sirocco wind, I don't forgive you the death, you who bring an
injured remembrance of things lived which, alas, always repeat, even
in other and different forms. The lived thing scares me as scares me
the future. This, as passed, is intangible, mere supposition.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>I
am at that moment in a white empty waiting for the next moment.
Counting time is only a working hypothesis. But what exists is
perishable and this requires counting the immutable and permanent
time. It has never started and will never end. Never."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
time of soul and thought, if it really is air, it is also the
weather: the atmosphere, the wind...</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I
pride myself on always foresee weather changes. There is something in
the air. The body tells that something new is coming and I joy of
all. I do not know why."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Life
is nothing neutral or abstract. We live moment to moment until death,
with all its consequences. With organicity, viscerality, with
pleasure, pain, consciousness... The thread of our life, with the
absolute specificity of flowing moments, is the air we breathe,
breath after breath. The millions of breaths of our life, a finite
number whose value nobody knows, each, at every moment, ignorant of
the future, defines our thinking and defines us as thinkers.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Don't
you see that this is like the birth of a child? It hurts. The pain is
the exacerbated life. The process hurts. Becoming is a slow and slow
good pain. It is the wide yawn that makes us stretch ourselves to the
limit. And the blood is grateful. I breathe, I breathe. The air is
'it'. The air with windblown is yet a 'he' or a 'she'."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I've
talked a lot about death. But I will tell you now about the breath of
life. When one does not breathe is made mouth-to-mouth. You stick the
mouth to the other's mouth and breathe. And the other begins
breathing again. This exchange of breath is one of the most beautiful
things I've heard tell of life. In fact the beauty of this
mouth-to-mouth is dazzling me."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
flow of thought, as life itself because it is also the flow of life,
is unpredictable.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Oh,
how uncertain is everything. And yet within the Order. I do not even
know what I will write in the next sentence. The ultimate truth is
never said. Whoever knows the truth has to come. And talk. We will
listen afflicted."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Writing
is frustrating to me; when I write I struggle with the impossible.
With the enigma of nature. And of God."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our
soul, mind, is like a mirror, reflecting always something, an image,
a content. You can not surprise an empty mirror, when you look you
don't see the mirror itself but you see yourself. And yet, the
essence of the mirror is to be empty, it is not to be which reflects.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"What
is a mirror? It's the only invented material that is natural. Whoever
looks at a mirror, who gets to see it without seeing himself, who
understands that its depth is to be empty, who walks into its
transparent space without leaving in it vestige of self image, then
this someone has understood its mystery."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"A
mirror in which I see myself it is me yet, only an empty mirror is a
living mirror. Only a very sensitive person can enter an empty room
where there is an empty mirror, and with such a lightness, with such
an absence of himself, that the image is not marked. As a reward that
delicate person will then have penetrated into one of the inviolable
secrets of things, have seen the mirror itself."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We
do not choose to thought, as a psychological state or existence it is
free of our will. Maybe we should not declare their authors.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"The
thought called 'freedom' is free as an act of thought. It is free to
the extent that to the thinker himself this thought would seem to
have no author.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>True
thought seems to have no author."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Free
thinking does not obey the logic of words, it's a mental blow at the
same time it's a blow of air.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"The
primary thought thinks in words. The 'freedom' one, on the contrary,
is released from the bondage of the word."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Today
is Saturday and is made of pure air, only air."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's
a fluence that never ends: the thought that always arises in the
present.</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"What
will be after is now. Now it is the domain of now. And while
improvisation lasts I am born."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"What
I write you is a 'this'. It will not stop, continues.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>You
look at me and love me. No, you look at you and love yourself. That's
right.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>What
I write continues and I am still enchanted."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">* * *
</span></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">Ibn
Arabí: </span><span style="color: #666666;"><i>Los
engarces de las sabidurías</i></span><span style="color: #666666;">.
Edaf. Madrid. 2009.</span></span></span></div>
<div lang="ca-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">Clarice
Lispector: </span><span style="color: #666666;"><i>Agua viva</i></span><span style="color: #666666;">.
Siruela. Madrid. 2012.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div lang="zxx" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
</div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-35529068331799431882015-03-26T11:46:00.001+01:002015-03-26T11:46:11.661+01:00The physical philosophers: Diogenes of Apollonia.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
last of materialistic and monistic philosophers of ancient Ionia,
Diogenes of Apollonia, around the years 440-430 BC, also went right
down the same path as his predecessors and held, openly and
explicitly, that the air is the 'beginning' of all things.
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Just
some fragments of the writings of this philosopher, belonging to his
work <i>'On the Nature'</i>, are preserved, which were collected by
Simplicius. But if we listen to different quotations, he seems to have
written several more books, one <i>'Against the Sophists'</i>, one
<i>'On meteorology'</i>, and one on medicine that he would have
entitled <i>'On the Nature of Man'</i>, which Galen would referred
when he said that Diogenes had compiled diseases and their causes and
remedies in a treaty. Everything indicates that Diogenes of Apollonia
was a doctor by profession and would have published, indeed, this
medical treatise in which their notions about the origin of diseases
would appear related, surely, with the ideas of his general theory,
which ones have been preserved and we'll see here.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Diogenes
thought the world and its parts were ordered in the best way possible
by the intervention of a divine intelligence that would be present in
originating substance that is air. By the provisions of this 'air
intelligence' the world is not a chaos but a real cosmos, where
everything is distributed according to some regularities, like the
seasons, day-night cycles, weather variations...</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
essential substance the whole of reality is air, said Diogenes, for
the obvious reason that living beings if they can live is by
breathing air. The air is 'soul' understood as vital principle (which
gives life), as deduced from the fact that life leaves the body when
breath leaves.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
This
idea was already in some uses of <i>'zimós'</i> and <i>'psijé'</i> of Homer, who
Diogenes praised (claimed Filodemo) because <i>"he told on the
divine not poetic but truthfully and claimed that Zeus himself is the
air explicitly"</i>.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Diogenes
relates both outdoors air and the air contained in the body, in the
vein of Anaximenes, and relates the term <i>'pneuma'</i>, which means soul
or spirit, as a synonym for breath and wind. Air is the giver of
life, thus becomes God, because if it gives life it has absolute
power on everything, on all the phenomena of human existence. It is
infinite, eternal and immortal, it is not subject to time limits of
life of any body, it does not perish with it (on the contrary, is it
that gives and removes life) and it extends everywhere.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
air is responsible for the regularities and irregularities of the
cosmos, and also of the human psyche. Not that the air contains
intelligence, but it is intelligence because it is what orders and
disposes the mind and the entire cosmos, it really is the
intellectual soul, is what has knowledge. <i>"The air is great and
powerful, eternal and immortal and knowing many things"</i>
(Simplicius, Physics 153, 20).<br />
<br /></div>
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<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
One of
the reasons that prompted Diogenes conceive the air as the principle
of all things and as 'god' was, as mentioned in the case of
Anaximenes, the fact that the air is so subtle substance that eludes
the senses and seems intangible or incorporeal. Another reason, also
commented, is its omnipresence: "the air rises to the top and
down to the lowest and fills all the spaces." Incorporeality and
omnipresence are two attributes of the apparent 'metaphysical' or
'divinity' of air, but actually, paradoxically, they are just a pure
physical phenomenon of nature.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
One
difference with Anaximenes lies in the fact that, to Diogenes,
changes that would explain the phenomena of nature are not confined
to the rarefaction or condensation of air, but also another factor
involved is its temperature. To Diogenes, the distinctive feature of
divinity and humanity is heat, in complicity with the ideas of
Heraclitus on the 'igneous ether'. To Diogenes of Apollonia
intelligence is hot air, warmer than the atmosphere although not
quite as the ether that surrounds the sun.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
temperature of air producer of intelligence, what Diogenes says is
very interesting, would register continuous slight temporary
modifications which may explain, in turn, the numerous and
unpredictable variations that occur in time in our perception, our
thinking and our psyche in general.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
A
moderate heat would be the distinctive feature of air-soul or
<i>'pneuma'</i>, which would explain, according to this wise, fluctuating
changes in mental states and acts, from the most subtle variations of
thought and perception to the most extreme states of sleep and death,
which also correspond to extreme changes of <i>'pneuma'</i>: <i>"Diogenes
says that if the blood, spread throughout the body, fills the veins
and pushes containing air toward chest and bottom belly, sleep occurs
and the central part of the body is heated, but if all the air goes
out of the veins, death occurs"</i> (Aetius, V 24, 3).</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Clearly
Diogenes of Apollonia thought as a physician and led theses of
Anaxímenes to the field of physiology. He did not maintain outside
the body but he entered to explaining how the air acts in the body to
produce the phenomena of soul. The universal air gets into the body
by breathing and flows, driven by the blood of the veins of the body,
to the brain, which acts as an interpreter of fluctuations or 'logos'
of this universal air.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
air inside our body partakes of the 'divinity', is part of it, by
transmiting the universal to our personal soul. Our thinking becomes
a kind of organ sensitive to fluctuations ('logos') of air. The
ethereal element extends throughout the universe and also acts on the
bodily <i>'pneuma'</i> of each person by the action of breathing and blood
circulation. Accordingly, changes in our mental and cerebral activity
are due to variations in atmospheric air (in terms of temperature,
density...) from the outside world but the body 'interpreted' by its
natural functioning creating one cerebral and mental 'logos',
internal and subjective.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 0.7cm;">The
seat of soul is the brain. The brain is the organ that interprets
changes in air, it is which intellects. The brain is the instrument
that uses air to think. The (other) sensory organs are subordinated
to this main organ that produces the act of understanding. The brain
'resonates' with certain variations of air that give it a 'logos', as
ear resonates under certain frequencies to offer sounds and sonorous
languages. Outside air 'feeds' the soul and comes first to the brain
and stays there; the remainder spreads throughout the body through
blood vessels and engages, thus, the whole body in insights and
emotions. Whole body, but especially the brain, 'vibrates' with air.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Diogenes
maintains that, when a large amount of air is mixed with the blood
and lightens it according to its less heavy nature, and penetrates,
subtilized, whole body, pleasure originates; and when air is present
against its lightweight nature, by action of moisture, and does not
mix to be weighed, blood clots, weakens, it becomes denser and hence
arises displeasure and pain. Similarly moods, such as trust and its
opponents distrust and shame, and health and its contrary illness,
originate, says Diogenes.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
What
is the thought itself is caused by the pure, dry and hot air, as all
wet emanation inhibits intelligence. This is the reason, he argues, because the thought appears diminished in sleep, in drunkenness and
satiety, because in them the air is concentrated in the belly and it
become dirty by elements that are there, he says.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Another
proof that moisture removes intelligence is indicated from that other
living beings are inferior in intelligence to man because they
breathe the air closest to earth, which is wetter and impure, he
says. (The birds breathe fresh air, true, but he argues that they
have a similar to fish constitution, because its flesh is solid and
air does not penetrate completely but is detained around the the
abdomen... and understands that plants are totally deprived of
intelligence for the simple fact that have no air in.)</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
To
Diogenes intelligence is the same as the vital intensity. This is
very interesting. There are different degrees of intelligence and
different degrees of vital intensity corresponding to the first.
These quantitative differences in intelligence and vitality would be
originated from, according to him, besides the properties of the
surrounding air, the permeation of air into the body. The least,
plants, then fish and birds, have a low degree of vitality and
intelligence, it is assumed, by low penetration and diffusion of air
inside.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
human being is the one with a higher degree of intelligence and
vitality, because he absorbs and disseminates a lot of air into his
body, it is understood; but he is also highly variable from one
moment to another, there is nothing static in him, quite the
contrary. There are times when people live life intensely, when everything flows so fast and absorbent, which are those moments that
we have a deeper and more vivid thinking. At other times the opposite
happens, we are unable to mentally prepare anything and understanding
of things is absent, and our existence is drab and boring. In these
times, unlike the first, the degree of our vital intensity is low,
such as our intelligence. And this changes would obey to changes in
qualities of air and / or in our way of breathing. Intelligence
(thought) is so unstable and volatile as the element that generates
it...</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
thought or intelligence, for the philosopher of Apollonia, is nothing
'superior' emerging from elementary 'lower' activities but is at the
same level as sleep, senses, pleasure and pain, feelings, health...
All are 'sensations' produced by the air. Everything is at the same
level. The outside air comes into contact and mixes (or simply waves)
with the air inside the sensory organs and the brain, through the
veins or blood vessels.<br />
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbxWVdrzwXFyuYNQH4a_DTC9IQwmYOhToZqV0OX50-yEGZU3K2-b1cUlmpq_OJETIVgJBvOpZ52c0-pY3kR0AspJPAMY1hZFYaDGnaERtI9q7L63JdAQnOMRyF0Rsw-_2_OWuoepcArKM/s1600/venes1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbxWVdrzwXFyuYNQH4a_DTC9IQwmYOhToZqV0OX50-yEGZU3K2-b1cUlmpq_OJETIVgJBvOpZ52c0-pY3kR0AspJPAMY1hZFYaDGnaERtI9q7L63JdAQnOMRyF0Rsw-_2_OWuoepcArKM/s1600/venes1.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a>To
Diogenes insights come from air, which takes over the whole body
through veins and blood, especially in those propositions in which
the veins itselves provide an "adequate anatomy" (Simplicius,
Physics 153, 13). The thought, the intellectual soul, is generated by
the correspondence between the air and the arrangement of our veins
and our brain. The clarity of perception and intellect of a
particular proposition depends on the subtlety of air that diffuses
into our body, and on the finesse and the straightness of the
channels through which spreads: on the resultant of the specific
anatomy of involved veins.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
When
air is mixed with the blood and is permeated in the brain and the
whole body, the feeling of pleasure and vivid thought arises. Thought
depends on the purity and dryness of air and, as pleasure, arises
when air is mixed with blood, subtilizes it, and spreads throughout
the body through the vascular network. Thought and pleasure are very
similar things in reality. Think the world in an understandable way,
understand it (intellective knowing), is a powerful form of pleasure.
So, intelligence, thinking, vital intensity and pleasure are totally
united in Diogenes. Vitality, enjoyment, insight, understanding,
thought, reason... are interrelated in its own essence if they are not the
same thing. Many philosophers have intuited that the understanding of
the world is the greatest pleasure to which man can aspire, but have
failed to explain the reason. Diogenes of Apollonia, the physical, the
forgotten, did.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Cappelletti,
A. J. <i>Los fragmentos de Diógenes de Apolonia</i>. Tiempo Nuevo,
Caracas, 1975.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Cappelletti,
A. J. <i>Mitología y filosofía: los presocráticos</i>. Cincel,
Madrid, 1987.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Cicerón,
M. T. <i>Sobre la naturaleza de los dioses</i>. UNAM, México, 1986.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Fernández
Cepedal, J. M. <i>Los filósofos presocráticos</i>. Proyecto
Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Conde,
F. <i>Filósofos presocráticos</i>. Página sobre filosofía,
www.paginasobrefilosofia.com.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">González,
C. <i>Historia de la filosofía</i>. 2 ª ed., Madrid, 1886. Edición
digital Proyecto Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-34734834465796129632015-03-21T09:05:00.000+01:002015-03-21T09:05:37.293+01:00The physical philosophers: Democritus.<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAJQP25jQdD8Nt8daJoqLDy0Pg9AGnLdhFkJzUPgRepCINpNy6a9ts5gCc4mPZE3g_-3oEnJj-clAPLnq439rXrPYuAB-Jzvtl5orcyfIpotON2VtXBUqb6mb27tsJqPrC20lvyB6cM7Y/s1600/Democrite_Leon-Alexandre_Delhomme_MBA_Lyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAJQP25jQdD8Nt8daJoqLDy0Pg9AGnLdhFkJzUPgRepCINpNy6a9ts5gCc4mPZE3g_-3oEnJj-clAPLnq439rXrPYuAB-Jzvtl5orcyfIpotON2VtXBUqb6mb27tsJqPrC20lvyB6cM7Y/s1600/Democrite_Leon-Alexandre_Delhomme_MBA_Lyon.jpg" height="640" width="390" /></a>Not
far from the line of Heraclitus, Democritus, about 460 BC, extended
the psychology of atomism of his predecessor Leucippus and taught
that the human soul was a substance composed of very subtle and
spherical atoms, as those of fire, and it was precisely because of
their subtleness and sphericity that these atoms contribued to
perpetual motion and heat of both the fire and the human soul.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
soul, to Democritus, is a very subtle and volatile element that
exists within the body (made of much more inert and gross material).
This volatile soul spreads and penetrates all parts of body tissues
and produces the different organs and limbs own vital functions...
The thought, consciousness and sensation, particularly, would be the
result of a form of variable combination of these ethereal and
spherical atoms. The unstable combinations of these would be the
source of psychic manifestations and their fluctuations over time.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
atoms of the soul have a continuous circular motion which says
Democritus is sustained by the inspiration and expiration of air.
Breathing, therefore, is the essential process of life and of the
psychic manifestations that occur over time. These are, again,
breathing and air.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
What
the philosopher of Abdera called spirit is not a supreme creative
force in the world, or anything supernatural or metaphysical, not
even a principle of nature 'superior' to mechanical motion. It is
not, in fact, an essentially different force from mechanical
movement. What we call 'spirit', like 'soul', is just a more subtle
material (air) compared to other grosser and solid (the body) or, if
preferred, is the phenomenon resulting from the properties of these
finer and subtler air atoms we breathe in their action on our body
atoms.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Also,
gods, whose existence he admits, are for Democritus basically the
same: spirits, beings like the soul in its origin and composition,
with no other difference with soul than having a more durable
arrangement of their atoms, a longer life, but this is the only
respect in which gods and spirits are superior to men and their soul.
Gods are also mortal and subjected, like us, to the supreme law of
fate, the only constant, ie the law of eternal, the necessary and
universal motion of atoms, the unfailing flow of organization and
disorganization of matter. Gods, spirits, soul, mind, consciousness,
sensation, thought... are essentially the same: they are the similar
phenomena resulting from the action of air in our body through
breathing.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Cappelletti,
A. J. <i>Los fragmentos de Diógenes de Apolonia</i>. Tiempo
Nuevo, Caracas, 1975.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Cappelletti,
A. J. <i>Mitología y filosofía: los presocráticos</i>.
Cincel, Madrid, 1987.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Cicerón,
M. T. <i>Sobre la naturaleza de los dioses</i>. UNAM, México,
1986.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Fernández
Cepedal, J. M. <i>Los filósofos presocráticos</i>. Proyecto
Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Conde,
F. <i>Filósofos presocráticos</i>. Página sobre filosofía,
www.paginasobrefilosofia.com.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">González,
C. <i>Historia de la filosofía</i>. 2 ª ed, Madrid, 1886.
Edición digital Proyecto Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-41732359600500337482015-03-12T10:35:00.001+01:002015-03-12T10:35:59.194+01:00The physical philosophers: Heraclitus.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVOvi7Mp6pQL77oG21hz-5Q4NeS2ZMMXol3nGD-11LUnrio9flUfsTFH9IzAw_s2I26G5q_L8VVN_-xQWXqtrcL6hmYUW8DGouCWRRFnaVuRE1TQnpligj2kaxH39W_aAiENZnccomNs/s1600/heraclito.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVOvi7Mp6pQL77oG21hz-5Q4NeS2ZMMXol3nGD-11LUnrio9flUfsTFH9IzAw_s2I26G5q_L8VVN_-xQWXqtrcL6hmYUW8DGouCWRRFnaVuRE1TQnpligj2kaxH39W_aAiENZnccomNs/s1600/heraclito.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Although
this conception of the soul belonged to an ancient tradition
expressed already in Orphism, the thesis of Anaximenes that conceived
air as the physical substrate of the human soul was considered the
first theory of antiquity on the human psyche in science and
philosophy.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
A
similar version is that of Heraclitus, who maintained, around the
year 500 BC, that soul was composed of 'igneous ether' (no simple
air) and it was this 'igneous ether' what filled the soul and also all
the sky. Sky and soul were, for this philosopher, a single matter, a
matter that was psychic and celestial at a time. Then the soul of human
and the universe, made of the same, behave according to very
similar principles.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
For
Heraclitus 'logos' of the world is produced by the 'igneous ether' or
'fire'. According to him, in nature there is opposition and
continuous confrontation between opposing elements, but there is also
an underlying order in the becoming of things, though not always it
is quite obvious to us. The world, due to 'logos of igneous ether',
is a kosmos and not chaos; the 'fire' is the natural process that
sorts and organizes everything, says the philosopher.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Human
life must adapt to this natural order of becoming things, to this
resulting 'logos', by wisdom. Since this is the 'logos' which governs
the world, true knowledge can not consist in anything else than its
understanding, and there can be no greater motivation and
satisfaction that progress oneself in this regard and get positively
accommodated to becoming reality.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Reason
and 'logos of igneous ether' are the same, because the universe is
arranged according to a plan that makes all things, seemingly
different, keep organized and really be one, which the human
intellect intended to capture continuously and instinctively. The
'logos' is what explains the existence of such a consistency that
allows things, in plural and even contrary appearance, be actually
linked in a coherent complex, human themselves are also a part of
which.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
For
Heraclitus everything is constantly changing, everything flows,
according to an order, yes, but which is not explicit but is veiled:
<i>"Some even say no that some things move and some not, but all
are in constant motion, although this fact is beyond our sensory
perception" </i>(Aristotle, Physics 3 253 b 9).</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>"Different
waters flow over those entering the same rivers. Spread and meet...
meet and separate... they are coming and going."</i> (fr 12
Arius Didymus, ap Eusebium, PE, XV 20;. fr 91 Plutarch, E 18, 392 B).
Everything flows, but the senses usually inform us of plural and
superficial manifestations of the varying things misleadingly: <i>"Bad
witnesses are the eyes and ears for men who do not understand their
language."</i> (fr 107, Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos
VII 126). Understanding is what captures the 'logos', what everything
have in common, the order that is in the evolution of kosmos, behind
the sensible.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Not
everybody come to grasp the world order, only somebody. Heraclitus
calls barbarians (<i>"barbarian souls"</i>) to those who
are not able to understand and interpret adequately the language of
the senses and are deluded by the superficial manifestations thereof.
<i>"...Must be followed what is common, but although the Logos
is common most people live as having a particular intelligence"</i>
(fr 2 Sextus Empiricus, Adv math VII 133). Thus, there is a unique
order-logos-language common to all people, a single intelligence
which is not specific but all-encompassing, one true understanding
that unifies all, that is not made of simple ideas created by the
individuals, but it is the actual constituent of things, the primary
cosmic element (the 'fire'), which is the world's intelligence while
human intelligence.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiTElkGAuxqJIPW0a57R-fqYEAbxl3yMkH-yIhx3IwVLHPwN8Ci-69eq92DQvXZshFjFAZploMkPJbK-shD14bb-StX8Gd2EWTeN1HCqE5mb9fJnKqKdADJQeaTHDZc5wDtqW9WGE71Bg/s1600/P3130014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiTElkGAuxqJIPW0a57R-fqYEAbxl3yMkH-yIhx3IwVLHPwN8Ci-69eq92DQvXZshFjFAZploMkPJbK-shD14bb-StX8Gd2EWTeN1HCqE5mb9fJnKqKdADJQeaTHDZc5wDtqW9WGE71Bg/s1600/P3130014.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Intelligence
is not individual, but coincides with the "intelligence of the
world ', with the understanding and apprehension of 'universal
logos'. People is intelligent if is able to understand the worldly
order, if his mind is able to apprehend and reflect simply the actual
order of the world as it is given, that is, the natural relations of
things, which is common to all things. Therefore, men can not have
private, individual, personal intelligences, because there is only
one common intelligence ('logos') to all nature and to all people,
corresponding to the 'igneous ether' that 'moves' everything .</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Human
reason has to be a derivation of universal reason, a kind of organ of
perception of universal logos, superior to all others senses, which,
unlike them, does not deceive us continuously, quite the contrary.
This is the 'sense of reason' which orders for us all elements of the
universe. Traditional bodily senses only perceive things that happen
and vary constantly, they are not able to perceive what is invariable
behind the apparent, that is, the truth and the reason.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
All
science being guided exclusively by the sensory is necessarily false.
Only through higher sense which is the human reason people can
perceive the true, the eternal and permanent in perpetual flow of
things, which does not change, which is the logos itself, the process
of change itself.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
For
Heraclitus fire is the constant source of change processes. The logos
of 'fire' is the order and the extent of continuous change imposed by
the evolution of everything that happens in nature, with its
regularities and irregularities. The 'fire' controls the matter, all
matter in the cosmos, the strongest and the most ethereal, everything
that exists, also the soul.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
We
must understand that we recognize the 'fire' as a highly dynamic
process of ethereal element that the air is, which Anaximenes referred to
as the constituent of the universe and the soul, as discussed in a
previous post. The fire, in fact, is very hot air or 'igneous ether'.
Indeed instead of the term "fire" Heraclitus often used
"igneous ether", referring to the warm and subtle air
flowing into the upper region of the sky (which, according to
tradition, is identified with God and with the soul):</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>"The
ancients assigned sky and upper region </i><i style="line-height: 26.456693649292px;">to the gods </i><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">because they
believed it was the only immortal area."</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;"> (Aristotle, De
Caelo B 1, 284 to 11.)</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>"Ether
received their souls and earth their bodies ."</i> (Inscription
Graecae Y 945, 6; Athens, V century before Christ.)
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>"What
we call hot seems to be immortal, what apprehends all things, what
heareth, sees and knows all things, both present and future. His most
part, then, when everything came into confusion, went toward superior
revolution and I think is what the ancients called ether."</i>
(Hippocrates, De carnibus 2.)</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGF_6KccWcCeScsE89SQP9tNxJdy6ZRHVxQLKcHvsivw3YUKaQWnvzgMdmb51F8H_J0w4oUI5TYVVQ8OFNqrz3U9Fs-Nd9Ks-bWPjuuxrsJMTSOI8z6YJNJU04hIJeMkRiaC3ofZRgdqY/s1600/Blake_die_sonne_am_ost-tor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGF_6KccWcCeScsE89SQP9tNxJdy6ZRHVxQLKcHvsivw3YUKaQWnvzgMdmb51F8H_J0w4oUI5TYVVQ8OFNqrz3U9Fs-Nd9Ks-bWPjuuxrsJMTSOI8z6YJNJU04hIJeMkRiaC3ofZRgdqY/s1600/Blake_die_sonne_am_ost-tor.jpg" height="400" width="301" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 0.7cm;">Heraclitus
thinks that the future of all beings on earth, especially man but
also institutions that man has created, is intimately linked to the
natural world surrounding and that is inevitably affected by the
movements of hot ether that comes from the upper regions of the sky.
What man created or participated is sensitive to human behavior and
to mood and the 'igneous ether' variations, in a natural way. And he
affirms that wisdom consists precisely in being aware of this fact,
to understand how the entire world operates (although he admits that
the unique thing that can achieve this goal in an absolute way is God,
because the logos of the ether is a manifestation of God, or God
Himself, and He is the one that is contained and fully understands
himself). God is the absolute wisdom. Man and human institutions can
not be understood outside the natural world (or God, therefore) but
all things, even those that are a creation of man, indeed, are
natural and are governed by the same laws of logos or common
intelligence.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
For
Heraclitus the soul is the igneous ether governing body and mind
of men. The human mind has a direct relationship with the soul-ether,
such for Anaximenes had in the soul-air. Comes to be basically the
same. The soul like ether or air has a "unattainable limits",
moves dynamically throughout the universe, enters everywhere,
penetrates all things and moves freely through all parts of body, and
does so "according to its needs”.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
action of ether or air expands and acts on everything, but remains
veiled to our conscious understanding; it has its own internal 'needs'
that are so deep in some aspects that are not intelligible to us:
<i>"You do not get to find the limits of the soul in your way,
not even through all the ways: as profound dimension it has."</i>
(Fr 45, Diogenes Laertius, IX 7.)</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Different
authors made their own interpretations of how empirically happens physical 'contact' of soul-ether with the logos of fire. Sextus says
that, according to Heraclitus, we simply inhale the logos of igneous
ether with air, which gives us the intelligence and place order and
organizes what the senses capture; and that during sleep, he adds,
the contact of the soul with the igneous logos remains exclusively
through breathing, in a primary mode, being the senses 'closed'.
Breathing this divine reason (logos) we become intelligent. We forget
worldly things while we sleep, but we recover our senses again when
awaken, he says. Being the channels of perception closed during
sleep, our mind is separated from its links with the surrounding,
retaining its unique linkage through breathing, like a kind of 'root'
(Sextus Empiricus, Adv math VII 129). He adds that, while we sleep,
not being so intense inhalation as when one is awake, the soul would
be in an intermediate state between life and death, which is what
characterizes sleep, apart from the separation of the senses.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Chalcidius,
meanwhile, attributes to Heraclitus the consideration that the soul
would only contact with cosmic reason precisely during sleep, being free of the senses and their interruptions, in a Platonic type of
interpretation.
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
According
Aetius souls are fed by internal and external exhalations: Internal ones come from the blood and other body fluids, while external would be
those that are absorbed through the breath...</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Breathing
is the common denominator of Heraclitus and Anaxímenes: We breathe
air, pneuma, the breath. The action of 'igneous ether', even if it
comes from outside sky, reaches us in contact with air, enters our
minds by breathing, and is through breathing that preserves, develops
and renews our soul; as conserves, develops and renews 'the spirits
and gods' that populate the world, because they are, in fact, the
same that our psyche: they live there.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Cappelletti,
A. J. <i>Los fragmentos de Diógenes de Apolonia</i>. Tiempo
Nuevo, Caracas, 1975.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Cappelletti,
A. J. <i>Mitología y filosofía: los presocráticos</i>.
Cincel, Madrid, 1987.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Cicerón,
M. T. <i>Sobre la naturaleza de los dioses</i>. UNAM, México,
1986.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Fernández
Cepedal, J. M. <i>Los filósofos presocráticos</i>. Proyecto
Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Conde,
F. <i>Filósofos presocráticos.</i> Página sobre
filosofía, www.paginasobrefilosofia.com.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">González,
C. <i>Historia de la filosofía</i>. 2 ª ed, Madrid, 1886.
Edición digital Proyecto Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-53884539888351231562015-03-03T17:14:00.000+01:002015-03-03T17:14:03.364+01:00The physical philosophers: Anaximenes.<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo8XPKaiS6C68OIFzxIkwgNVZTliTy673lZ47PWrd8q1fiJJMeACRnnYeoTzwOjqlXNIzuaUyYrRXmNiRUG9LqB_dEkb2Q5rYP-_3hT1Tarmi5jPpBVvYLyvO39PXFIQTaLkmEN5EF4o/s1600/Anaximenes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo8XPKaiS6C68OIFzxIkwgNVZTliTy673lZ47PWrd8q1fiJJMeACRnnYeoTzwOjqlXNIzuaUyYrRXmNiRUG9LqB_dEkb2Q5rYP-_3hT1Tarmi5jPpBVvYLyvO39PXFIQTaLkmEN5EF4o/s1600/Anaximenes.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a>The
work of the pre-Socratic Ionian philosophers often has been
interpreted, over centuries, in a simplistic way throught the prism
of a modern reductionist materialism that actually has little to do
with the original approach of these ancient thinkers. It has been
done, many times, a naive reading of their thesis on the elements of
earth, water, air and fire as creative principles of the universe. A
classical naturalist aproach considered these authors the remote
initiators of the natural sciences, which visions and solutions
becamed logically obsolete. These called physical philosophers have
made contributions of great merit to geography, astronomy,
meteorology, mathematics and biology, certainly, but their production
is not limited, in my opinion, to the conventional interpretation
throught the prism of current science, as their purpose was not that
of making a science detached from the whole of man and his daily
experiences. Do not be fooled, they were philosophers in the broadest
sense and not 'physical' or scientists who provide some sort of
technical solution as we understand now. Their goals were
far-reaching.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Angel
Cappelletti (1987, 59) points out in this regard that study of each
of the pre-Socratic philosophers separately, and an overview of them,
impels precisely to break schematic and restrictive
conceptualizations of their work and look for something much more
fundamental and intuitive: <i>"... what compels us to see in
them a true philosophical school are especially common problems
centered on the idea of 'physis' and the shared worldview derived
from an original intuition. A single, eternal, infinite and active
reality which is at once matter, life and spirit, from which all
things arise and return, and all are made of it, and by which all
become what they are, that is the core of such a worldview "</i>.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
As
Cappelletti says, these thinkers had a clear universal orientation
and wondered for the principle (<i>'arche'</i>) or origin of reality,
of the whole reality. Their thought concerns the investigation of the
origin of reality and being, poses an ontology, seeks a unifying
principle, a common element to suggest that all is essentially the
same. This concern converges in all cases in humans because despite
the apparent subject of investigation is physical or a foreign to
person matter, these thinkers assume that all natural phenomena
arises from human experience or manifests in it. Thus, natural
phenomena, the physical and material world, converges with the
phenomena of perception, thought, consciousness (the phenomena of the
soul and spirit). There is only one fundamental reality that is at
once matter and spirit, which is life, by which all things exist and
are what they are. Man, nature and being are either the same single
reality, which works by unique (and eternal, infinite and active)
principles.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 0.7cm;">We
begin by noting the proposal of one of the initiators, Anaximenes,
that the principle of all is air (single reality), an element that is
unmeasurable (infinite reality), which precedes all things (eternal
reality) and it is also the generator of all things (active reality).
In its process of mutation, the air generates the other elements and
these are also dissolved in it in their corruption, says Anaximenes.
It is the first rise of both material things as mental and spiritual.
We can say that the air is God. </span><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">"Anaximenes established that
the air is God, and that it is engendered, immense and infinite, and
is always moving"</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;"> Cicero collected in </span><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">'The nature of
gods'</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;">. Matter, soul and God are manifestations of a single
principle or reality.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Tradition
places Anaximenes (acme around 546 BC) as a disciple of Thales and
colleague and successor of Anaximander. Theophrastus said about him:
<i>"The Milesian Anaximenes, son of Eurístrato and colleague of
Anaximander, said, as the first, that the underlying nature is
infinite, but not undetermined, as Anaximander, but determined, and
called it air; Anaximenes differentiates into the particular
substances by rarefaction and condensation. By becoming more subtle
becomes fire, more condensed becomes wind, then cloud, further
condensed water, earth and stone. The other things are produced
therefrom. Conceives also eternal its movement by which also
generates change."</i> (Simplicio, Physics, 24, 25-26)</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Anaximenes
sets as <i>'arche'</i> the air, which is an invisible and infinite
principle like the <i>'apeiron'</i> of Anaximander, but the air of
Anaximenes, as the water of Thales, is actually a precise and
specific principle, has a physical and concrete existence. (In fact,
philosophy of Anaximenes is generally understood as an attempt of
synthesis between Thales and Anaximander: the air as <i>'arche'</i>
replaces the water of Thales, but also incorporates properties of
undetermined <i>'apeiron'</i> of Anaximander, as is infinity.)</div>
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<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 0.7cm;">Why
chooses Anaximenes air as </span><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">'arche'</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;"> and not fire, earth or
water? Fernandez Cepedal notes that Anaximenes found in the air some
empirical properties exercising better than the other elements
functions of </span><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">'arche'</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;">. The air would be better than water the
adequate material for the </span><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">'logos'</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;"> of transformations of
elements, throught its processes of rarefaction and condensation,
because it would manifest very diversely becoming more subtle or,
conversely, more condensed: becoming more subtle and slight increases
its volume and temperature and is to become something like fire or
fire itself. When condenses, on the contrary, decreases in volume and
temperature and becomes something colder and stronger as water and
earth, according Anaximenes. Are quantitative changes, the increase
or decrease in density, what generates resulting qualitative
differences. The same applies to the opposites hot and cold which
Anaximander extracted forcedly from the 'apeiron' and that Anaximenes
says that occur naturally from these same quantitative changes of
condensation - rarefaction. </span><i style="line-height: 0.7cm;">"What is compressed and condensed
is cold, and the rare and lax is hot"</i><span style="line-height: 0.7cm;"> Plutarch says (De
primo frigido, 7, 947 F).</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
This
is a parsimonious theory because the whole comes simply from a single
element which varies quantitatively. Then there is the special and
interesting property of invisibility of air. As Hippolytus
(Refutatio. Y 7, 3) says the air <i>"when it is perfect is
imperceptible to the eye"</i>. The air is infinite and
determined, but the determination of the air is much more 'abstract',
as it is imperceptible to the senses, than water, because it is
invisible (like the <i>'apeiron'</i>). So much so that the air is
usually confused with emptiness (the existence of air as a matter
actually was not demonstrated until the time of Empedocles and
Anaxagoras).</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
invisible air is infinite and <i>"includes the entire cosmos"</i>
(Aetius, I 3, 4) because the air is empirically imperceptible and
seems limitless and occupy a vast region of the world ('whole') and
penetrate everything. Omnipresence of the invisible air is much
greater than that of water, is almost complete. It is the perfect
<i>'arche'</i>.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Air is
a very subtle element in motion and change, of which we are unaware
precisely because of its great subtlety and lightness (plus
invisibility), that being omnipresent and touching all the other
elements and created things must be affected by or be involved in the
continuous movement and changing of the 'whole'. It is not
unreasonable to think, therefore, that the air must be the first
cause, the dynamic principle that generates the rest of nature,
hidden from our senses, which has therefore 'divine' character.
<i>"Anaximenes says that the air is God"</i> Aetius and
Cicero agree in affirming regarding our philosopher. Categorically.</div>
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<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
We
have seen elsewhere the explicit identification of air with the
divinity that did Orphism, that the gods themselves are originated
from air or are made of air, literally. Saint Augustine also makes an
interpretation of Anaximenes in this sense when he writes <i>"...
Anaxímenes attributed all the causes of things to infinite air and
did not deny the gods nor was silent about them, he did not believe,
however, that the air was produced by them, but they themselves were
born from the air"</i> (City of God, VIII, II).</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
'divine' nature of air is related to the idea that the power of this
element extends everywhere and penetrates everything, especially the
bodies of human and animals, by carnal and 'solid' they seem. Thus
the divinity of outside air, when it enters the body, becomes
lifeblood, the soul is the air itself and its properties are the air
ones. Thus we can say that soul is breath. Within us is soul and
outside is air while spirit or divinity. The soul is the action of
air in each individual person, and the spirit or divinity is the
action of universal air on humanity.</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
air is related to divinity and soul at least from Orpheus and Homer.
<i>"As our soul being air unifies us, so the breath (pneuma) or
air covers the entire cosmos"</i> (Aetius, I 3, 4). Our soul is
air, Anaximenes says, specifically is the inside air that holds us
united, and he says, is the same air that covers and bindeth the
whole universe. He identifies cosmic air with <i>'pneuma'</i>, which
in Greek meant air or breath while soul, just as the term <i>'psyche'</i>.
He considers the air as our soul and as the breath of the world ('the
spirit of the world').</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
<i>'aither'</i> acts in the universe as the <i>'pneuma'</i> in the
body. Similarly the <i>'pneuma'</i> (air-soul) penetrates and remains
attached the body, giving life and governing it, the <i>'aither'</i>
(air-spirit) penetrates and remains attached the universe, giving
animation and governing it. There are no boundaries between our body
and other material objects. All is one. The Milesians regarded the
universe as a living being, a kind of huge body. The soul and life
are not generated individually from the body, but it receives them
from air-spirit of the universe, which is 'God'.</div>
<br />
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cappelletti, A. J. <i>Los fragmentos de Diógenes de Apolonia.</i> Tiempo Nuevo, Caracas, 1975.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cappelletti, A. J.<i> Mitología y filosofía: los presocráticos. </i>Cincel, Madrid, 1987.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cicerón, M. T. <i>Sobre la naturaleza de los dioses.</i> UNAM, México, 1986.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fernández Cepedal, J. M. <i>Los filósofos presocráticos.</i> Proyecto Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org, 2000.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Conde, F. <i>Filósofos presocráticos</i>. Página sobre filosofía, www.paginasobrefilosofia.com.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;">González, C. </span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;">Historia de la filosofía.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;"> 2 ª ed., Madrid, 1886. Edición digital Proyecto Filosofía en español, www.filosofia.org, 2002.</span></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-21975217567343324932015-01-17T16:41:00.002+01:002015-01-17T16:41:39.972+01:00Ibn Arabi, the linker of wisdoms (II).<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To
Ibn Arabi everything is imagination, we live in a world of
imagination, the physical world is alien to our conscience, as is the
true reality (truth, God), and our 'personal reality' is purely
mental. We move in a psychological world, the world of names that we
put to things, not in the world of things in themselves.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"You
have to know that you are imagination, and that everything you
perceive and you say 'this is not me' is (also) imagination. Our
personal reality in its totality is an imagination within
imagination. In contrast, true reality, truth, is God seen in its
essence and in its being, not from the point of view of its names."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"God
is as light that a glass veiles to look and dyes its own color:
colorless itself, it is presented with colored to illustrate what is
your reality when compared with your Lord. If you say that light is
green because the glass is this color, you tell the truth and senses
testify on your behalf. If you say it's not green nor has any color,
following which tells you common sense, you are also telling the
truth and thus give witness evidence of a healthy intellect."</i>
Glass is the person and his skills and conditioning. Everyone stains
with his personal experience the pure light of intellect. A opaque
glass and personality gives an intense color that stains everything,
offers a monochromatic way of seeing the world. A more transparent
glass and personality is brighter and shows better the forms of the
world in its diversity of tones, better reveals the reality and the
'forms' of God, the manifestation of God in the intellect is higher.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This
God that is pure intelligence (that is 'the truth') comes from sky,
says Arabi, but is with us wherever we are, because we are its
manifestation. It is our essence, our intelligence. It is what
directs and governs the universe we perceive. <i>"He
descends to the sky of this lower world. It is in sky, on earth, is
with us wherever we are, and lets us know that it is our own essence,
while being limited beings. (...) The universe is his form and he is
the spirit of the universe, who governs."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"He
is the complete being,</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>and
is the only one.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My
being is by his being,</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>so
I say 'he is fed'.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My
existence is his food,</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>while
we are fed by him."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This
divine unity of God with intelligence, of intellect with the
universe, far from being static is dynamic, moves, fluctuates
continually, 'breathes'. Is a 'pressure' or blow producing diversity
and variability in the 'forms' or ideas, that is, causes mental life:</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"To
end this oppression 'inherent in the divine unity, as the essence of
things, He has breathed'. He himself has attributed the breaths to
infinitely merciful, because he is who gives mercy to divine
attributes of those seeking to manifest the forms of the world, which
we say they are outside of God because he is outside, as is inside."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"God
moves in the forms."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"(God)
gives life to the forms in the breath..."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God
is expressed in the intellect, is the breath or blow that breathes
life to attributes that names express and ideas ('forms') manifest.
It is a 'breathing' dynamic relationship between information and
life.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God
is so great that no religion explains enough, nor any creed is better than others, because all are far to make it understandable actually. The
understanding of God is such a immense phenomenon that no science and
no creed achieved and, in trying to explain, just distort reality.
<i>"Be careful not to join a particular creed denying the rest,
because you will lose immense good. Even more: you will lose the
science of truth as it is. Let your soul be the substance of the
forms of all faiths, because God is too great and too vast to be
contained in a creed excluding the others."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Religions
often confuse causes with effects, a matter in which science is more
careful, fortunately. It is true that God is expressed in the heart
of the people in the form of mercy, as religions say, maintains
Arabi, but God is not mercy, should not be confused with it. The
heart may contain mercy but God is much greater than content of heart
at a certain moment. God is the agent, not the result, is the origin
of the action that happens in the hearts of people, not a result of
this action.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Arabi
says in chapter 12. <i>"Know that the heart comes from the mercy
of God, but is greater than it, because contains God, while his mercy
does not contain it. At least that's the interpretation that
involves vulgar language, which states that God is the agent and not
the object of mercy, and that this may not apply."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God
manifests in the hearts of people through a blow or breath. God
'breathes' in our hearts. Arabi does not describe the scientific
mechanism of this action, he just notifies it repeatedly throughout
the book. At the beginning of this chapter, for example, he writes:
<i>"God has been described as the owner of breath..." "The
first aspect that has awarded a consolation through his breath,
attributed to the infinitely merciful, is precisely the divine
lordship."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God
is not a creature but is the phenomenon that is the manifestation of
'the forms' of the world in our hearts and minds through the 'blow'.
Somehow God corresponds to the organization of our psyche (and its
limitations). God, as our psyche, reveals the world, because it takes
all 'forms' of the world, unifies all that is thinkable or
imaginable. All 'forms' are part of God. God unifies everything (the
Whole) in the unique concept of God (the One). Since God is all, when
it is perceived, we can not perceive anything else, because there is
nothing else to perceive (nothing is more than the whole, nor there
is more world than all the world). <i>"You must also know that
the Most High God, as mentioned in the Sahih, changes forms in its
manifestation, and when the heart retains it, does not retain with
him any creature. The meaning of this is that the heart, when looks
God at the moment it appears, can not look at anything else."
</i>...If you perceive the Whole you can not perceive anything else,
you perceive the One. If you perceive God's reasons, what other
reasons might strike your attention? If you conceive how the world
truly works what else may interest to you? suggests Arabi.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our
heart and our psyche reproduce the different 'forms' (ideas) of the
world in which God manifests. <i>"While God differs in its
manifestation in forms, the heart expands and shrinks necessarily to
the measure of the form in which the divine manifestation operates,
but not over at all. On the contrary, has exactly its size and shape
('form'). Round if the bezel is round, square, hexagonal, octagonal,
etc. if the bezel have any of these forms. Its location on the ring
has no other 'form' than that which is like it."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But
this is a veiled way. The soul of people includes only the idea of
God in their personal profession of faith. The God we see is the God
in whom we believe ('the God of beliefs'). The real action of God is
invisible to our consciousness because it is the action of our own
consciousness.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God's
movements are the same as the movements of our soul, so we did not
detect any external movement ourselves. They are invisible to us.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Arabi
explains: <i>"God is manifested in two ways: one invisible and
one visible. According to the invisible manifestation, God gives the
heart predisposition, and this is the essential manifestation the
nature of which is the mystery, is the essence. When the heart has
acquired this predisposition, God manifests visibly to it: the heart
sees it and then it appears in the form in which it has manifested.
'God' lifts the veil that separates it from the server, so that he
sees in the form of his profession of faith. (...) The eye just can
see the 'God of beliefs'."</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;">According
to these two modes of manifestation of God (invisible and visible),
there are two ways of believing in God: God as agent and God as idea.
</span><i style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;">"This differentiation of creeds is clear. Who conditions to
God (with their beliefs) recognizes it when it is manifested in this
conditioning, but unknowns it in any other way. But the one who
declares it absolute and unconditional will never unknown it, but he
recognizes all forms under which it diversifies. He gives the measure
of the form in which it has manifested to him, indefinitely, because
the forms of divine manifestation are limitless."</i></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
'forms' of God, 'knowledge' of the phenomena of the world, have no
limit, never finish and we always want to achieve more (God as
knowledge agent). The same happens with the knowledge of God (God as
the object of knowledge). <i>"Knowledge of God, like all
knowledge, has not, for the Gnostic, any limit where to finish. On
the contrary, even being a Gnostic, he claims at anytime to increase
this science. 'Lord increase my science! Lord increase my science!
Lord increase my science!' says the Quran (20, 114)."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
intellect alone tends to simplify and unify, reduces reality to make
it affordable to our preconceived ideas and creates an illusion of
control, distorts reality. The intellect works to turn everything
into an object of knowledge. The divinity and forms of the world are,
on the contrary, infinite and therefore unpredictable to our
knowledge. It is the heart, then, what is responsible for managing
our knowledge of the infinite forms of the world and to keep our
intellect open to the world. The call of God is to those with heart,
not to those with intelligence alone. <i>"The intellect
conditions and reduces the manifestation </i>(of God and the world)<i>
to a single qualification, which is contrary to the true reality.
This is not a call for those who have understanding, who profess
beliefs, for those who declare unbelievers and damn each others."</i>
Arabi said.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And
continues. <i>"The professed divinity by one has no power over
professed by the other. Who abides by a creed defends his conception
of divinity and rejects any other, but what contains his creed is of
no help and remains with no effect, and has no effect on the creed of
whom oppose. Similarly, the opponent should not expect any help from
the divinity present in his own creed: has no defenders. God has
denied that the deities of beliefs can serve any help when considered
separately. What gets help is the Synthesis, and what helps is the
Synthesis..."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"So
the Quran says 'there is a call for which provided with heart' (50,
37), because the heart acquires knowledge of God's changes in
essential forms, because of the changes taking place in the apparent
forms. It is from 'self' (the person) as knows in 'Self' (the deity),
because himself (the person) is the Essence of God."</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;">Beyond
what you think or believe, the reality is what it is. Beyond the idea
of God that everyone has (as an object of knowledge) God exists and
acts in 'our hearts' and exists and operates completely independently
of the contents of these thoughts, but not of the act of thinking
itself, which is something very different. God works in our soul
changes and diversification and changes in our thoughts, acts in our
mind that 'produces' different thoughts in time. </span><i style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit; line-height: 0.7cm;">"Nothing can
exist in the universe that is different from the essence of God: He
is the gnostic, who knows, which is recognized in such a way, and he
is also the one who is not, who does not know, which is not
recognized in such other form. Here is what is given to who knows God
through the manifestation and contemplation of synthetic Being. His
words 'to who is provided with a heart' allude to who is diversified
in changes."</i></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God
acts in the 'professions of faith' of all people, it is manifested in
them as very different they are, precisely because they are a result
of the actions of varying thought, in which the true divinity
expresses diversely. All faiths are a manifestation of God and, for
this reason, there are none better than others, while all are
incomplete for the same reason.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"This
science is especially attributed to Shu'ayb (Jethro) on the occasion
of 'movement in all directions', whose ramifications are innumerable.
Every profession is one, and they are all ramifications.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(...)
When the veil will be lifted, everyone will know a revelation
according to his creed. It may be, however, that revelation will
differ in respect to the divine decision, according to his words:
'And will show them from God what they had not anticipated'.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(...)
As Essence, some servers declare in their professions of faith that
God is in one way or another. When the veil will be gone, they will
see the true form of his creed. What they had gotten linked thus will
be disconnected. The creed will disappear and will give rise to a
science obtained by direct contemplation. When the look will become
penetrating never again will be weak. The diversity of manifestations
in the forms then will make these servers see to appear that which
differ from their creed, because the manifestations of God never
repeat, so that the verse: 'will appear from God what they did not
anticipate', is also verified about it."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"This
constant progression is one of the strangest things that man has no
consciousness of it due to his subtle and light veil and false
similarity of the successive forms. Indeed, the common man is not
aware of the permanent manifestation of God that ensures the renewal
of creation at every instant. This appears, for example, in the words
of the Most High... 'when a similar form will be given to they'
(Quran 2, 25). However, one is not the other. For the Gnostic who
knows they are similar, two similar things are necessarily different.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(...)
How beautiful is what God Almighty has said about the world and its
transformations at each breath! It is in a new creation within the
unique Self. He said about some people (and this applies to most of
the world): 'are in the confusion of the fact of a new creation'
(Quran 50, 15), so that they are unaware of the renewal of existence
at every breath .</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(...)
They ignore that the whole world is nothing but a gathering of
accidents and that, consequently, is constantly changing, as the
accident can not exist by itself in two successive instants.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(...)
We should conclude, from what they say, that what can not subsist on
two successive instants exists in two successive instants and even
more, and what can not subsist by itself has become what can subsist
by itself. They are unaware its contradictions. Really they are those
'who are in the confusion of the fact of a new creation'.</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(...)
Those who reach the intuitive revelation, they see that God manifests
itself in every breath, and that divine manifestations are never
repeated. They see by direct contemplation that all manifestation
brings a new creation, and that disappears another. This
disappearance is the extinction of the previous when the </i>(new)<i>
manifestation of God occurs, and permanence refers to what offers
this new manifestation. Understand this."</i></span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
world is renewed every breath, and every breath is different, as is
different every idea and every thought. Never repeated exactly, nor
the ideas or breaths. The diversity of ideas in our consciousness
comes from the diversity of breaths ('the breath of God') behind each
of them.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-US">Ibn
Arabi: </span><span lang="en-US"><i>Los
engarces de las sabidurías</i></span><span lang="en-US">.
Traducción, edición y notas de Andrés Guijarro. Edaf. Madrid.
2009.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-23660399893426809302014-12-14T11:47:00.001+01:002014-12-29T16:23:15.904+01:00Ibn Arabi, the linker of wisdoms (I).<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimzE6F8dv87fyCbaMcyxWj3a0FdQWxIxyHX4AvEXW8a_ptu334F2ui8PIgjYV7mxoy1MyJR2fOTRGTm4yfxYoWAUGrEcUq3DViNMbdXxAyDzqcCj2RkOpyoE-9vzhyphenhyphenb570SjFnp57xiU4/s1600/Arabi3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimzE6F8dv87fyCbaMcyxWj3a0FdQWxIxyHX4AvEXW8a_ptu334F2ui8PIgjYV7mxoy1MyJR2fOTRGTm4yfxYoWAUGrEcUq3DViNMbdXxAyDzqcCj2RkOpyoE-9vzhyphenhyphenb570SjFnp57xiU4/s1600/Arabi3.jpg" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-US">Ibn
Arabi, at the beginning of </span><span lang="en-US"><i>The Bezels of
Wisdom</i></span><span lang="en-US">, explains that in a dream he had
in Damascus in 627 the Sent of God appeared him and commissioned him
to transmit to humankind the content of this book.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-US">He
did so, he says, "</span><span lang="en-US"><i>with great care
not to add or take anything away from the words of the Most High, who
requested to grace to take a transcendent inspiration and spiritual
blow from inside his soul to preserve everything his fingers write,
his tongue express and his heart keep</i></span><span lang="en-US">"
so that he was, as good Sufi, truly "</span><span lang="en-US"><i>a
simple interpreter, and not someone who decides</i></span><span lang="en-US">".</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">The
goal of the book is very high, it is to articulate and 'set' the
speeches of the great masters, they would seemingly different ways
but share the main lines of a single underlying structure, the lace
which will be revealed to him directly by divinity.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">God
is so great, explains in the first chapter, dedicated to the verb of
Adam, that you can not perceive in his entirety. It is
incomprehensible in itself. We need some kind of 'receptacle' or
'vessel' that contains or reflects some discrete action item to
understand and conceive God.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">God
is not to be confused with nature, he says, because nature alone, but
is immense and created by God, has no spirit. There must be, added to
nature, "<i>vessels of insufflation or breath of the spirit</i>"
to speak of divinity. It is our mind the vessel of God; and our ideas
or thoughts, that shape mind, are the vessels, in plural, of 'angels'
or 'spirits' of God. To each notion or idea corresponds a 'form', and
the energy that generates and gives life to it is called 'angel' or
'spirit'. The 'forms' of the universe are the ideas, the contents
that take the spirits in our minds.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">“<span lang="en-US"><i>Our
being is humankind and yet is the representative of God” </i></span><span lang="en-US">says
Arabi.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">There
is a manifestation of God in all of creation. He is outside of
everything that is understood and, in turn, is the interior which
understands, but is beyond the comprehension of itself (discussed in
Chapter 3, dedicated to the verb of Noah). Human and God are linked
in a very intimate way. The knowledge of God is attached to
self-knowledge. “<i>The one who knows himself knows his Lord”</i>,
the prophet said, collects Arabi. Or as the Quran says and that also
includes: <i>"We will show them our signs in the horizons
(outside) and in their own souls (interior) until it becomes apparent
to them that He is God"</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">He
notes: <i>"You are the form of God and God is your spirit. The
definition of man includes what is outside and inside: if the spirit
ceases to govern the form, what remains of this is not a man,
although it is said of it that is the shape of a man, only designates
the name 'man' metaphorically, not according to true reality”</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYHOC6Gpw946U5E5KtiOyo2wumt51GM2GQQAIprtWgeyi7_sWmu_DztsoYM_DPJLtI1o6SAtulCe73SLxuiWLJVlBbuh4Cm468gzBGRafBo5uU8y0MHrfsquEbWNfbMu1PjCdNJoUqGo/s1600/Arabi5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYHOC6Gpw946U5E5KtiOyo2wumt51GM2GQQAIprtWgeyi7_sWmu_DztsoYM_DPJLtI1o6SAtulCe73SLxuiWLJVlBbuh4Cm468gzBGRafBo5uU8y0MHrfsquEbWNfbMu1PjCdNJoUqGo/s1600/Arabi5.jpg" height="398" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">God
is our intelligence and understanding, is the highest of the human
soul, what Noah says the sky will pour over men abundantly, that is
not the literal rain or a flood, interprets Arabi, but grace and
wealth God, the great gift that He sends us, is <i>"that we
can see our own form in Him". </i>He adds, <i>"because the
one who imagines that he sees Him (as separate from the human) has no
knowledge. The Gnostic is the one who knows that who he sees is
himself; this is what differentiates ignorant and wise persons”</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>"God
does not open the vision of all beings that are part of the world to
let them see reality as it is; some have science, while others are
ignorant, simply. God has not willed, has not led us all"</i>,
he writes in chapter 5, referring to Abraham.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">It
is indeed a very elusive knowledge because <i>"science has no
effect on its object, which is you and your passenger states. On the
contrary, it is the object (mind) that has an effect on it (science)
and which communicates what belongs to it. It is thought that leads
to science. The 'divine discourse' takes into account the
understanding of those it directs to, adapts to his reason and it is
expressed in them"</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Science
and divinity are individually expressed in understanding and
intelligence of each one. It is difficult to conceive it therefore
beyond the speech of each one reason. Such a nature that unifies our
inner world with the outside world, is beyond our understanding. “<i>Our
intellect can not understand all this by way of rational speculation.
Such understanding occurs only through a divine intuition that allows
to know the origin of the forms of the universe, which are the
vessels of spirits that govern them"</i>. Just a few of us get
to experience this intuition.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">However,
there is no person who has not a spiritual dimension and not subject
to the divine science, says the Quran. Everyone has their own
reality. <i>"By your personal existence you manifest a reality
yet. Even if you keep your reality belongs to God and not to you,
also the divine reality belongs to you. Being endowed with current
reality is you. Despite the reality is operated by God, returns to
Him when acting on you. Only you deserve praise, only you deserve
censure. Are you who its nourishment is, and is He who your
nourishment is: your own determination determines him. Just that you
are who is subjected to the law, and He is who subjects you”</i>.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">At
the end of the fifth chapter is expressed in these verses:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>"We
are for Him, as shown</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>our
tests, and we are for us.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>He
does not own more than my Being.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>We
are in Him and we are for us.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>I
have two faces: Me and Him.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>There
is no I in me.</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>But
me is where it manifests:</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>we
are to Him a vessel."</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Arabi
said in the ninth, based on the verb of Joseph, that our world is
"the world of imagination," that is, that our world is
purely mental. We have no access, he says, to strictly real world, to
nature itself, which is inert and soulless, foreign to our
understanding and our lives. For the existence of world to us our
mind must perceive it. The divine is precisely our mind, not the real
world. Our mind is the vessel that receives the 'permanent divine
manifestation'. It is our intelligence that orders the nature and
which manifests divinity in this ordering action. It is what creates
the 'logos'.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Our
mind has 'angels' or receives 'angels', Arabi writes. The 'angels'
are, according to him, the constituent parts and faculties of the
universe, while they are the mental and sensorial faculties of human,
sorted in some 'divine' hierarchy, ranging from the apperception of
absolute truth nearest God (the intellect) to empirical or sensory
reality farthest from higher faculties and divinity. Our intellect is
'divine' as it perceives God and it is provided by a breath of God.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">We
live in a purely mental world. Arabi notes what the messenger of God
said to Aisha: <i>"Truly, men sleep, and when they die, wake
up"</i>. We live entirely in the imagination and dream... We
live in the world of imagination. Namely we do not imagine reality
but possibilities, which we believe may be real, but they are not
reallity, be care! They are just thoughts!</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Our
lives and experiences need to be interpreted, require proper and
intelligent interpretation not to lose ourselves in the fantasies of
our personal lives, more or less distant from the divine speech of
intelligence.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">We
must accept, above all, according Arabi, that <i>"we don't know
of the world more than we know of its shadows, and we ignore of God
what is ignored of divine personality that produces this shadow on
the origin of all others. While the world is a shadow that belongs to
God, it is known; but as long as you ignore what shadow contains of
the true 'form' (idea) of the person who produces it, God is ignored
yet. That's why we say we know God at one aspect and ignore at
another"</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>"The
world is illusory because it is devoid of true reality itself. We
live in a world of imagination, because we imagine that the world is
an independent and superimposed reality outside God, when it is not.
We don't see that the shadow, in the sensitive domain, holds the
person who produces it, and it is impossible to separate of it,
because it is impossible to separate something of himself."</i></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">And
resolves: <i>"Learn to recognize your being, who you are. What
is your true being, what is your affinity with God, why you are God
and why you are the world”</i>.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.7cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444;">Ibn
Arabi: </span><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Los engarces de las
sabidurías</i></span><span style="color: #444444;">. Traducción, edición y
notas de Andrés Guijarro. Edaf. Madrid. 2009.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.6cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-71852226445491529002014-09-25T19:38:00.001+02:002014-09-25T19:38:57.372+02:00The natural God and soul of Eckhart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmwIptzIQXYrmyXJqBGIrjl2Jt2pxNydOagEsVqXE-ZHRMe84fOJLb6fr8tbwkOzbUnhYEAChdSE6QrWsGv9O3kjvt3M7WHBm9lPG4Nl2jASC5UjP-ZagoQNcZe5Xvtm0j_3wDGnU1qU/s1600/flames.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmwIptzIQXYrmyXJqBGIrjl2Jt2pxNydOagEsVqXE-ZHRMe84fOJLb6fr8tbwkOzbUnhYEAChdSE6QrWsGv9O3kjvt3M7WHBm9lPG4Nl2jASC5UjP-ZagoQNcZe5Xvtm0j_3wDGnU1qU/s1600/flames.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
God
works in two wonderful ways that look very different one from the
other. It works 'physically' with the sky, the stars, the moon and
the sun. And at the same time, it makes 'great things' with our soul,
'spiritually'.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
God,
according to Eckhart, is the 'power of heaven', a kind of force that
flows from the air. God has this power of heaven, that is physical
and operates with the stars, but at the same time, surprisingly, acts
on the soul and 'spiritually'. God acts on our soul the same way as
it does on the stars and stuff, that is, as a physical force. Thus,
our soul would be 'spiritual', indeed, but more in the sense of being
of a spirit or etheric matter (from the sky) rather than in a
metaphysical sense.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
God
must not be sought beyond the natural and physical world, since it in
reality is a force that acts by nature on man and other creatures.
And what we call the human 'soul', that of man on what this force
acts, must be a result from the same or a very similar nature.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Everything
that exists belong to the realm of the natural. Also the human soul
and God. So much so man would not have any preference over other
creatures in the 'divine' action, even invoking, revering and praying
to God. God, angels, spirit... act on all that is corporeal, with no
difference whether a person or a fly or anything.
</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
We
and the flies can only suffer or enjoy the reality of nature, the
natural order of things, the 'logos', 'truth' as is given to us,
'God' as is given to us. Our thoughts, our desires, etc. do not add
or remove anything to reality or truth themselves. Therefore, we
should not alter what is given but only seek and discover it,
understands Eckhart. Our desire must not create any reason unrelated
to nature, as must not create any God unrelated to nature. Both
(caution!) would just be pure fantasy.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
order of nature / God is eternal. It has always existed. It /He is
the creator and director of the world. Creates both governing. It
rules while creating. Now it creates, and have always created. It is
immutable, nothing affects him. It is impeccable and implacable. If
nothing affects it, least they do the intentions and actions of men
and creatures. He/it is nature, eternal, immutable, implacable. It is
the becoming of nature. Therefore the wishes and prayers of men will
not affect it.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
only valid form of 'prayer' is the approach to nature itself, looking
to capture it and make us like it, by the abdication of human
artificial occupations, created by the fantasy of men, maintains
Eckhart.
</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
We
should assimilate once that God acts throught pure, ineffable way,
although we only realize a 'glare' of his hidden action. God acts
like a little 'spark' that goes unnoticed. God is the 'logos' of
nature that produces the 'logos' of our minds, but we do not catch it
because we are no able to isolate its actions from our thoughts.
</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
sky is the place of all things or what gives rise to all things that
we can understand, and meet the order and places them in the physical
world and in our understanding. The entire universe is ordered by a
hierarchy from the ethereal to the solid.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
All
nature and all that our mind can conceive is in the sky or under the
sky, according to an order, on different levels. Some things are
lower and corporeal, and other higher and spiritual. Each level of
the order of the world is subordinated to the higher levels, but it's
just 'touched' or 'illuminated' by the next higher level, as in a
chain.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
God
does not act directly on the lower things, corporeal and temporal
things, in which soul does not shine its natural light. God only acts
from eternity, on the highest part of the soul which is 'spirit',
through the sky. Corporeal and temporal things receive their being of
the human soul and the human soul, in turn, receives its true being
of God through the angels of heaven, as in a chain.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
soul, in its highest part, binds strongly to God through the sky and
celestial entities that are angels. The soul enters into him, and he
acts on it, transforms it. Heaven / sky, in its highest part, and God
are the same. Heaven / sky, in its highest part, does not take place,
because it's Everything, all-encompassing, but for the 'decay', in
the lower parts, it is location of corporeal things.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
more rough, solid, 'corporeal', is one thing, it is below, more
earthly and far from God. It is more sensorial and individual.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
more subtle and 'ethereal' is, more similar to God it is, more
vigorous and intellectual, because it covers and literally contains
things that are rougher and solid that are below, and thus it
encompasses and relates them.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
sky is all encompassing and, for this reason, has the capability to
influence everything. It is unique, universal, infinite. So has the
greatest power. God must necessarily be the sky or something in the
sky.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Other
ethereal beings from heaven, besides God, as we see, are the angels,
which act as a bridge between the highest sky (God) and our soul, in
turn intertwined with our earthly body, and is in this sense that
states that the angels act as 'messengers of God' in our mind.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
What
capture our earthly senses (more or less solid matter) simultaneously
is assimilated to what is infused 'spiritually' to us from the more
ethereal (God, angels, soul). Otherwise, it lefts unattended in
isolated bodily sensitivity, with no knowledge. It is not a mental
phenomenon.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
In
our knowledge and understanding only comes a reduction (a "stamping")
that engage the senses. Everything else (the interpretation,
meaning...) is provided by soul and spirit, God, not senses.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
intellect and will, which are the highest part of the soul, touch the
nature of angels and becomes an image of God. Our will and our
intellect '<i>gather light from the angels, and with it the divine
light</i>', they conform the light of our mind.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRPLOD5esdoW6VY1a04s-1GM2tXtWfrQu3IS2ngD0eM83E6ye0Yl_3q7-Ehodn-dy2zOMNNN-nu8xJUo8ZWjBS0biP-b22SsUUdvvTcIcuX6cZgsqyYUm2uBhJFVVrs4JgveUYjKsbu7Y/s1600/Blake+n03696_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRPLOD5esdoW6VY1a04s-1GM2tXtWfrQu3IS2ngD0eM83E6ye0Yl_3q7-Ehodn-dy2zOMNNN-nu8xJUo8ZWjBS0biP-b22SsUUdvvTcIcuX6cZgsqyYUm2uBhJFVVrs4JgveUYjKsbu7Y/s1600/Blake+n03696_10.jpg" height="400" width="377" /></a>Eckhart
says, even, that the will is so free that is not affected by anything
that capture our senses, since '<i>operates his work from their own
freedom'</i>. That is, our will is actually out of our control and we
are unpredictable ourselves from our individuality. We are wrong when
we try to understand and anticipate what we want and what guides our
actions from our individual sensory referents. The will flies free,
it does not depend on us as individuals. It depends on something else
much higher, open and sharing than 'us', as the 'spirit' of the sky.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
On
the contrary, understanding itself has involvement of corporeal
things, recognizes Eckhart. That is, our ability to understand and
know things is affected, as is evident to us, by our sensory
experience. But this involvement occurs only in a certain part of the
understanding, in a 'look down' on that knowledge receives the image
of corporeal things. Not so in the 'high' of the understanding (the
'background' or 'spark' of the soul), which does not get nearly what
senses lead.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
activity of the senses does not give the soul the 'light' of
knowledge, but only prepares it to collect the 'light' or knowledge
of 'angel from skies' and God, which is where emanates the pure
understanding (the ability or action of understanding). The sensory
world is the backdrop or context on which the understanding is
manifested, but not the understanding itself. The sensory world
provides the motive, the object, but actually is involved in a very
superficial way in the activity of reasoning and understanding
itself.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Eckhart
strives to clarify the nature of this power of the soul that is the
understanding and comes to conclude, surprisingly, that it would be a
kind of sense or sensory organ, unlike the five classic senses
(sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) but ultimately a sense. The
highest part of the soul is not anything individual nor elaborate nor
complex nor mysterious (nor metaphysical) emanating from man, he
says. It does not emanate from the individual, on the contrary, the
understanding would be reduced to sensitive capture of natural
(physical) emanation coming out, from skies. Understanding, the sense
that orders and gives meaning to the things of the world and the
life, is the sensitive to 'God' sense. (And 'God' is nothing
supernatural but is some form of energy or stimulus from the sky that
simply excites this sense of understanding.)</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
soul has two looks, we saw: one to the sensory world and the body,
the other directly to God. This look to God and the reception of the
divine 'force' may well not be conscious, says Eckhart, because the
soul isn't 'at home' but is in God's territory. It emanates from God
and man has no power in this birth. It is the eternal continuum of
birth of what Eckhart called the 'son', the spirit. It is the pure
understanding, which is so sublime that nothing can enter or be
there, just God in its naked nature. It is the understanding activity
itself, not its object. Then there is no place for any form of
thought or judgment, which are added from us, projections to our
sensory world. The pure understanding comes from God and only of God
depends, it is not contaminated by the contents of personal
experiences.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
understanding is before thinking. Truth exists before I discover it.
My concrete thinking does not create truth, only discovers it. The
truth and understanding exist outside of us (and is carried by
'angels' of the sky). Thought is what understanding affects to me.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Moreover,
as John believes (as quoted Eckhart) words can not name the soul
because the soul is precisely what generates the words. What the soul
is in itself can not become the subject of thoughts, at least in its
highest part. When they do, words name it referring to low, earthly,
depending on the body's senses things, and the true meaning of soul
vanishes.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Nothing
goes so much far from itself than the soul in 'its upper part', says
our philosopher. In a very large extent 'the upper part' of the soul
is outside the body and earthly powers, but is seated in them. God is
everywhere. But everywhere is still within our soul. God creates the
world within our soul. So, interestingly, the deeper it is, the more
outside. And the outside, more inside. The spirit emanates and yet
remains within our soul. Because the highest part of our soul, spirit
and God are the same 'power'. This is what happens with the words,
with reason and with everything that we perceive and understand. God
is infinite and eternal. Throughout eternity God has always done the
same. God now creates the will and reason in the soul of man, and has
always created them in the past and will create in the future.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
And
the philosopher insists that to be mentally empty of fantasies and
ideas from the sensory transforms nature, as transforms the physical
vacuum, that operates miracles as the water rises up. He talk of
spirits as material, ethereal, elements, which necessarily occupy a
space, and of the need of the physical vacuum to host them. And thus
concluded to be 'poor in spirit', which is the same as 'being empty'
of preconceived ideas, empirically means being susceptible to
apprehend or to accommodate any sort of spirit, God being the supreme
spirit. '<i>Blessed are the poor in spirit</i>' so.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
sky acts on the soul and all created things, the way it does on the
water, for example, in the case of tides. Everything tends naturally
towards the sky, which is the origin of the acts of the
divine-natural order: it is 'the power of heaven / sky'. The soul
flows into the sky, that's where it comes from, similarly as it does
to fire.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
sky totally spills on the ground in fertilizing way. Heaven / sky, in
its entirety, engenders all earthly and bodily life.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
earth is the farthest thing from heaven, but inevitably is surrounded
by it and is 'pushed' by it. The sky 'pushes its force' on earth (and
all that is earthly) and thus 'makes it fruitful'.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Earth
nor anything created, neither man, can escape from the influence of
the sky. The sky is always flowing and printing its strength, and
this fact does not depend on the will or desire of anyone, says
Eckhart. Although do not fool yourself thinking you can run away from
God, whatever you do, he / it acts on you. Like it or not, asleep or
awake, God does eternally what is its own. God is the force that
flows from heaven / the sky, is 'the power of skies'.</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Eckhart. Obras alemanas.
Tratados y sermones. Edhasa, Barcelona, 1983.</div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Ahora diremos que Dios
cuando es 'Dios', no es la meta perfecta de la criatura. Porque tan
elevado rango de ser lo ocupa (también) la criatura más humilde en
Dios. Y si sucediera que una mosca tuviera entendimiento y buscase
racionalmente el abismo eterno del ser divino, del que ha provenido,
diríamos que Dios, por más que fuera 'Dios', no podría satisfacer
ni contentar esta mosca. Por eso le pedimos a Dios que nos
desposeamos de 'Dios' y aprehendamos la Verdad, disfrutándola
eternamente allí donde los ángeles supremos y la mosca y el alma
son iguales, allí donde yo estaba y quería (ser) lo que era y era
lo que quería (ser). Por lo tanto decimos: Si el hombre debe ser
pobre en voluntad, tiene que querer y desear tan poco como quería y
deseaba cuando no era. Y de esta manera es pobre el hombre que no
desea.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3601"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón LII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Por encima de la luz
se encuentra la gracia; esta no entra nunca en el entendimiento ni en
la voluntad. Si la gracia tuviera que entrar en el entendimiento,
entonces el entendimiento y la voluntad deberían llegar más allá
de sí mismos. Tal cosa no puede ser, porque la voluntad es tan noble
en sí misma que no se la puede llenar sino con el amor divino. El
amor divino opera obras muy grandes. Mas, por encima hay todavía una
parte que es el entendimiento: éste es tan noble en sí mismo que no
puede ser perfeccionado sino por la verdad divina. Por eso dice un
maestro [Augustinus, De trin., XIV c. 8 n. 11.]: hay una cosa muy
secreta que se encuentra por encima, eso es la cabeza del alma. Allí
se realiza la verdadera unión entre Dios y el alma. La gracia no ha
operado nunca ninguna obra, pero sí emana en el ejercicio de una
virtud. La gracia no conduce nunca a la unión en una obra. La gracia
es un in-habitar y un co-habitar del alma con Dios. Para ello es
demasiado bajo todo lo que alguna vez se haya podido decir obra, ya
sea exterior, ya sea interior.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3471"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XLIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Cuando predico suelo
hablar del desprendimiento y de que el hombre se libre de sí mismo y
de todas las cosas. En segundo término (suelo decir) que uno debe
ser informado de nuevo en el bien simple que es Dios. En tercer
término, que uno recuerde la gran nobleza que Dios ha puesto en el
alma porque el hombre, gracias a ella, llegue hasta Dios de manera
milagrosa. En cuarto término (me refiero) a la pureza de la
naturaleza divina... el resplandor que hay en la naturaleza divina,
es cosa inefable. Dios es un Verbo, un Verbo no enunciado.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3631"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón LIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Lo que debe existir
(junto) con muchas cosas, necesariamente debe encontrarse arriba. Lo
que produce el fuego, debe estar, necesariamente, por encima de lo
que enciende, como el cielo y el sol. Nuestros maestros más insignes
opinan que el cielo es el lugar de todas las cosas y, sin embargo,
(él mismo) no tiene lugar, ningún lugar natural, y da lugar a todas
las cosas. Mi alma es indivisa y, sin embargo, se encuentra del todo
en cada uno de los miembros. Donde ve mi ojo, no siente mi oído;
donde siente mi oído, no ve mi ojo. Lo que yo veo o siento
físicamente, se me infunde espiritualmente. Mi ojo recibe el color
con la luz, pero éste no entra en el alma porque lo que entra en el
alma es una reducción (del color). Todo lo que reciben los sentidos
exteriores, para que sea introducido espiritualmente, viene de
arriba, de parte del ángel: éste la estampa en la parte superior
del alma. Ahora bien, nuestros maestros afirman [Thomas, S. theol. II
II q. 185 a. 3 ad 3.]: Lo que se encuentra arriba, ordena y ubica lo
inferior.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3011"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXV.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Dice un maestro que el
cielo recibe inmediatamente de Dios. Otro maestro dice que no es así:
porque Dios es un espíritu y una luz pura, por lo que lo que debe
recibir inmediatamente de Dios, debe ser, por necesidad, un espíritu
y una luz pura. Dice un maestro: Es imposible que algo corpóreo sea
susceptible del primer efluvio violento allí donde emana Dios, si no
es una luz o un espíritu puro. El cielo se encuentra por encima del
tiempo y es la causa del tiempo. Un maestro dice que el cielo, en su
naturaleza, es tan noble que no puede degradarse a ser la causa del
tiempo. En su naturaleza no puede ser causa del tiempo; (pero), en su
trayectoria es la causa del tiempo, es decir, en la deserción (de la
naturaleza) del cielo, (más) él mismo es atemporal. Mi color no es
mi naturaleza, sino que es una deserción de mi naturaleza, y nuestra
alma se encuentra muy por encima y «está oculta en Dios». Entonces
no digo sólo: por encima del tiempo, sino «oculta en Dios». Es
esto lo que significa el cielo? Todo lo que es corpóreo es una
deserción y un azar y un rebajamiento. El rey David dice: «Ante la
vista de Dios, mil años son como un día que ha pasado» (Salmo 89,
4); porque todo lo que es futuro y todo lo que ha pasado se encuentra
todo allí en un solo «ahora».'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3051"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXV.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmhyphenhyphenFOTbNo5ZtvmiyyhtgMk5RabVIWy0T_Q_9e9HAC4d_y1wAX51a7CvpmLi4Kyi8-FGYRwyMihDC9XUyXMhr6j52epWBeSBrxFFUnC6bWtpdTzQzBwUF5zdCX1nOPv1W349KYMDU-cPs/s1600/PA220021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmhyphenhyphenFOTbNo5ZtvmiyyhtgMk5RabVIWy0T_Q_9e9HAC4d_y1wAX51a7CvpmLi4Kyi8-FGYRwyMihDC9XUyXMhr6j52epWBeSBrxFFUnC6bWtpdTzQzBwUF5zdCX1nOPv1W349KYMDU-cPs/s1600/PA220021.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>«El patriarca Jacob
llegó a un lugar y al atardecer, cuando el sol se había puesto,
quiso descansar (Cfr. Gén. 28, 10 s.). Se dice: en un lugar, sin
nombrarlo. El lugar es Dios. Dios no tiene nombre propio y es un
lugar y una ubicación de todas las cosas y es el lugar natural de
todas las criaturas. El cielo en su (parte) más elevada y pura, no
tiene lugar, sino que, en su decadencia, en su efecto, es lugar y
ubicación de todas las cosas corpóreas que se encuentran por debajo
de él. Y el fuego es (el) lugar del aire y el aire es (el) lugar del
agua y de la tierra. Lugar es lo que me rodea, en el medio de lo que
estoy. Así el aire rodea la tierra y el agua. Cuanto más sutil es
una cosa, tanto más vigorosa es, por lo que es capaz de obrar dentro
de las cosas que son más toscas y se encuentran por debajo de ella.
La tierra (= el elemento) no es capaz de ser lugar en el sentido
propio, porque es demasiado tosca y es también el más bajo de los
elementos. El agua, en parte, es lugar, por ser más sutil es más
vigorosa. Cuanto más vigoroso y sutil es el elemento, tanto más se
presta para ser ubicación y lugar de otro. Así el cielo es (el)
lugar de todas las cosas corpóreas y él mismo no tiene lugar que
sea físico, más aún: su lugar y su orden y su ubicación lo
constituye el ángel más bajo, y así siempre hacia arriba; cada
ángel, que es más noble, se constituye en lugar y ubicación y
medida de otro, y el ángel supremo se constituye en lugar y
ubicación y medida de todos los otros ángeles que se encuentran por
debajo de él, y él mismo no tiene lugar ni medida. Pero Dios tiene
su medida (la del ángel) y es su lugar y el ángel es espíritu
puro. Pero Dios no es espíritu, según las palabras de San Gregorio
quien dice que todas las palabras que enunciamos acerca de Dios, son
un balbuceo sobre Dios. Por eso dice (la Escritura): «Llegó a un
lugar». El lugar es Dios que da su ubicación y orden a todas las
cosas. He dicho algunas veces: Lo mínimo de Dios llena todas las
criaturas y en eso viven y crecen y reverdecen, y lo máximo de Él
no se encuentra en ninguna parte. Mientras el alma se encuentra en
alguna parte, no está en lo máximo de Dios, que no se encuentra en
ninguna parte.</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box30811"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVI b.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Ahora bien, él dice:
«quiso descansar en el lugar». Toda la riqueza y pobreza y
bienaventuranza radican en la voluntad. La voluntad es tan libre y
tan noble que no recibe (ningún impulso) de las cosas corpóreas,
sino que opera su obra por su propia libertad. El entendimiento,
ciertamente, recibe (la influencia) de las cosas corpóreas, en este
aspecto la voluntad es más noble, pero sucede en cierta parte del
entendimiento, en un mirar hacia abajo y en una bajada, que este
conocimiento recibe la imagen de las cosas corpóreas. Mas, en la
(parte) suprema, el entendimiento obra sin agregado de las cosas
corpóreas. Dice un gran maestro: Todo lo que es llevado a los
sentidos, no llega al alma ni a la potencia suprema del alma. Dice
San Agustín, y también lo dice Platón, un maestro pagano, que el
alma tiene en sí misma, por naturaleza, todo el saber, por lo que no
hace falta que arrastre el saber hacia dentro, sino que mediante el
estudio del saber externo, se revela el saber que, por naturaleza, se
encuentra escondido en el alma. Es como (sucede con) un médico que,
si bien me limpia el ojo y quita el obstáculo que me impide ver, no
otorga la vista. La potencia del alma que obra en el ojo por
naturaleza, sólo ella presta la vista en el ojo, una vez sacado el
impedimento. Del mismo modo, no le da luz al alma todo lo que como
imágenes y formas es ofrecido a los sentidos, sino que únicamente
prepara y purifica el alma para que, en su parte más elevada, pueda
recoger puramente la luz del ángel, y junto con ella la luz divina.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3121"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVI b.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'...Ciertas potencias
del alma perciben desde fuera, como hace el ojo: por más finamente
que perciba y elimine lo más basto, toma, sin embargo, alguna cosa
desde fuera que ha puesto sus miras en el aquí y en el ahora. El
conocimiento y el entendimiento, sin embargo, lo tocan todo y recogen
lo que no hay ni aquí ni ahora; en esta dimensión (el
entendimiento) toca la naturaleza angelical. Pero sin embargo, recibe
de los sentidos; de lo que los sentidos aportan desde fuera, recibe
el entendimiento. La voluntad no hace tal cosa. En este punto la
voluntad es más noble que el entendimiento. (La) voluntad no quita
nada de ninguna parte que no sea el puro conocimiento donde no existe
ni el aquí ni el ahora. Dios quiere decir: Por más elevada y pura
que sea la voluntad, ella debe ascender más.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3151"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXI.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'¿Por qué dijo
Nuestro Señor: "Tienes razón "? Él quiere decir: Los
cinco maridos son los cinco sentidos; te poseyeron en tu juventud a
su completa voluntad. Ahora, a tu edad madura, tienes uno que no es
tuyo: es el entendimiento al que no obedeces». Cuando este «marido»
está muerto, las cosas andan mal. El hecho de que el alma se separe
del cuerpo causa gran dolor, pero que Dios se separe del alma, causa
mucho más. Así como el alma le da vida al cuerpo, así Dios le da
vida al alma. De la misma manera que el alma se derrama por todos los
miembros, Dios introduce fluyendo en todas las potencias del alma y
las atraviesa en forma tal que ellas continúan derramándolo (a
Dios) con bondad y amor sobre todo lo que se encuentra cerca de
ellas, para que todo esto lo perciba.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3181"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Al principio, cuando
la palabra es recibida por mi entendimiento, ella es tan pura y sutil
que es una palabra verdadera antes de ser configurada en mi
pensamiento. En tercera (instancia) es pronunciada exteriormente por
la boca y luego no es sinó una manifestación de la palabra
interior. Así también, la palabra eterna es pronunciada
interiormente en el corazón del alma, en lo más íntimo, en lo más
acendrado, en la cabeza del alma, de la que hablé el otro día, (es
decir) en el entendimiento: allí dentro se realiza el nacimiento.
Quien no tuviera nada fuera de una idea plena y una esperanza de que
así fuera, tendría ganas de saber cómo se realiza este nacimiento
y qué es lo que ayuda para que tenga lugar.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3301"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Los maestros escriben
que sería inverosímil si se afirmara cuál es la extensión del
cielo (pero) la menor potencia que se encuentra en mi alma es más
extensa que el extenso cielo, por ni siquiera hablar del
entendimiento que es extenso sin extensión. En la cabeza del alma,
(es decir) en el entendimiento, me encuentro tan cerca del lugar (que
se encuentra) a más de mil millas más allá del mar, como del lugar
que ocupo ahora. En esta extensión y en esa riqueza de Dios conoce
el alma, allí nada se le escapa y allí ya no espera nada. «El
ángel fue enviado.» Dicen los maestros (Thomas, S. theol. Y q. 50
a. 3 ad 1.) que la cantidad de ángeles constituye un número más
allá de todo número. Su cantidad es tan grande que ningún número
no los puede incluir, tampoco es posible imaginar su número. Para
quien fuera capaz de concebir (la) diferenciación sin número y sin
cantidad, cien sería lo mismo que uno. Aunque hubiera cien personas
en la divinidad: aquel que supiera distinguir sin número ni
cantidad, no conocería más que un solo Dios. La gente incrédula y
algunas personas cristianas iletradas se sorprenden de esto, incluso
algunos frailes saben sobre eso tan poco como una piedra: entienden
por tres, tres vacas o tres piedras. Pero quién sabe concebir la
diferenciación en Dios sin número ni cantidad, éste conoce que
tres personas son un solo Dios.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3331"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Al cuerpo humano le
corresponde el elemento más bajo, el elemento sólido, la tierra.
Sobre este elemento actúan todos los demás elementos, más elevados
(el líquido, el aéreo, el ígneo, los ángeles y Dios, por este
orden). El cuerpo está completamente rodeado por el cielo y recibe
todo el influjo del cielo. Todo lo que obra y derrama el cielo es
recibido por el cuerpo.«Homo», «el hombre», tiene el sentido de
«el que está hecho de tierra», y significa «humildad». La tierra
es el elemento más bajo y yace en medio y está rodeada
completamente por el cielo y recibe en todo el influjo del cielo.
Todo lo que obra y vierte el cielo, es recibido en medio del fondo de
la tierra.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3491"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XLIV.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3561"></a>
<i>'Dice un maestro: Todas las cosas iguales se estiman
recíprocamente y se unen unas con otras, y todas las cosas
desiguales se repelen y se odian unas a otras. Y ahora dice un
maestro que no hay nada tan desigual entre sí como el cielo y la
tierra. La tierra ha experimentado en su naturaleza que está alejada
del cielo y (que le es) desigual. Por eso huyó de él hasta el lugar
más bajo y por eso la tierra es inmóvil para no aproximarse al
cielo. Éste, en su naturaleza, notó que la tierra huyera de él
ocupando el puesto más bajo. Por lo tanto se vierte totalmente, de
manera fecundante, sobre la tierra, y los maestros opinan que el
cielo ancho y extenso no se reserva ni la anchura de la punta de una
aguja, sino que engendra a sí mismo sin restricciones, y de manera
fecundante, en la tierra. Debido a esto se dice que la tierra es la
criatura más fértil entre todas las cosas sujetas al tiempo.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3571"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XLVIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'El ángel tiene nivel
también muy alto: los más distinguidos de los maestros dicen
(Thomas, S. theol I q. 11 a. 3; y Albertus Magnus, De Caelestis
Hierarchi c. 5 § 7.) que cada ángel posee una naturaleza entera .
Es como si hubiera un hombre que tuviera todo lo que todos los
hombres juntos han poseído alguna vez, lo que poseen ahora y lo que
deberán poseer en cualquier momento, en lo que a poder y sabiduría
en todas las cosas se refiere, esto sería un milagro y, sin embargo,
él no sería más que un hombre, porque este hombre tendría todo lo
que tienen todos los hombres y, sin embargo, se encontraría lejos de
los ángeles. Así pues, cualquier ángel tiene una naturaleza entera
y se encuentra separado de otro, como un animal de otro que es de
diferente especie. Dios es rico en esta cantidad de ángeles, y quien
llega a conocer este hecho, conoce el reino de Dios. Ella (= la
cantidad de ángeles) representa el reino de Dios, así como un señor
es representado por la cantidad de sus caballeros. Por eso se dice:
«Un señor-Dios de los ejércitos» (Isaías 1, 24 et passim). Toda
esta cantidad de ángeles, por sublimes que sean, colaboran y ayudan
para que Dios nazca en el alma, es decir: sienten placer y alegría y
deleite por el nacimiento; (mas) no obran nada. Allí no hay ninguna
obra de las criaturas, ya que Dios opera, Él solo, el nacimiento: en
este aspecto les corresponde (sólo) una obra servil a los ángeles.
Todo lo que coopera, constituye una obra servil.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3361"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3381"></a>
<i>'La obra que el ángel opera en Dios (= la obra servil) es tan
sublime que nunca maestro o intelecto algunos podrían llegar a
comprenderla. Pero, de esta obra cae una astilla-como cae una astilla
de una viga que se desbasta (es decir) un resplandor, lo que sucede
allí donde el ángel con su parte más baja toca el cielo, por eso
reverdece y florece y vive todo lo que hay en este mundo.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3391"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXVIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3411"></a>
<i>'Hay una potencia en el alma (el entendimiento supremo) y no sólo
una potencia sino: (una) esencia y no sólo (una) esencia, sino algo
que desliga de la esencia... eso es tan puro y tan elevado y tan
noble en sí mismo que ninguna criatura no puede entrar sino sólo
Dios que vive allí. Ah sí, (lo digo) con plena verdad: Dios mismo
no puede entrar tampoco en tanto tiene forma de ser, ni en tanto es
sabio, ni en tanto es bueno, ni en tanto es rico. Ah sí, Dios no
puede entrar allí con ninguna forma (de ser). Dios puede entrar allí
sólo con su desnuda naturaleza divina.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3421"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XLII.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3431"></a>
<i>'El entendimiento es el 'marido' de los ángeles dentro del alma,
es de la misma naturaleza que los ángeles. Es la parte de los
ángeles que está dentro del alma. Coexiste y está comprendido en
la naturaleza de los ángeles.... El Espíritu Santo; Este se brinda
sólo allí donde se vive con el entendimiento. El entendimiento es
la parte suprema del alma donde, junto con los ángeles, tiene una
coexistencia y un estar-comprendido en la naturaleza angelical. A la
naturaleza angelical no la toca ningún tiempo, lo mismo sucede con
el entendimiento que es el «marido» dentro del alma, no lo toca
ningún tiempo.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box3441"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XLIII)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Dicen los maestros que ninguna
criatura no tiene tanto «asentamiento» en sí misma como lo tienen
el cuerpo y el alma, y eso que nada sale tanto de sí mismo como el
alma en su parte superior.'</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2351"></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón
XIII a.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Si nos mantenemos libres de las
cosas que se encuentran fuera de nosotros, Dios nos quiere dar, en
cambio, todo lo que hay en el cielo y el cielo mismo con todo su
poder, ah sí, y todo lo que de él alguna vez ha emanado y lo que
tienen todos los ángeles y santos para que sea tan nuestro como es
de ellos, e incluso más de lo que me pertenece cualquier cosa.'</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2371"></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Pláticas
instructivas. 23. De las obras interiores y exteriores.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>Dicen los maestros
(Cfr. Aristóteles, Physica c. 1, 208 a.) Que inmediatamente por
debajo del cielo hay un fuego muy extenso el calor del cual es muy
fuerte y, sin embargo, no toca para nada el cielo. Ahora bien, se
dice en un escrito (Augustinus, De quantitate animae c. 5 n. 9.) que
lo más bajo del alma es más noble que lo más alto del cielo. Pero
entonces, ¿cómo puede atreverse un hombre a decir que es un hombre
celestial y tiene su corazón en el cielo, cuando cosas tan ínfimas
aun pueden afligirle y causarle pena?</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2411"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(El libro de la consolación
divina. Consolación 2.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>'Ningún recipiente puede llevar por sí mismo dos clases de
bebida. Si debe contener vino, hay que verter necesariamente el agua,
el recipiente debe estar vacío y limpio. Por eso: si tienes que
recibir divina alegría y a Dios mismo, debes verter necesariamente
las criaturas. Dice San Agustín (Augustinus, En. 2 en Ps. 30 Sermo 3
n. 11.): «Vierte para que seas llenado. Aprende a no amar para que
aprendas a amar. Apártate para que seas acercado». En resumen: Todo
lo que debe tomar y ser capaz de recibir, debe estar vacío. Dicen
los maestros (Aristóteles, De anima II, t. 71.): Si el ojo cuando ve
contuviera algún color, no percibiría ni el color que contenía ni
otro que no contenía, pero al carecer de todos los colores, conoce
todos los colores. La pared tiene color y por eso no conoce ni su
propio color ni ningún otro, y el color no le da placer, y el oro o
el esmalte no le atraen más que el color del carbón. El ojo no
contiene (color) y, sin embargo, lo tiene en el sentido más
verdadero, ya que lo conoce con placer y deleite y alegría. Y cuanto
más perfectas y puras son las potencias del alma, tanto más
perfecta y completamente recogen lo que aprehenden y tanto más
reciben y sienten mayor deleite, y se unen tanto más con lo que
recogen (y) esto hasta el punto que la potencia suprema del alma, que
está desembarazada de todas las cosas y no tiene nada en común con
ninguna cosa, recibe nada menos que a Dios mismo en la extensión y
plenitud de su ser. Y los maestros [Cfr.. Thomas, S. theol. III q. 3
a. 2 ad4, q. 3 a. 4 y 5.] demuestran que, en cuanto a placer y
deleite, nada se puede comparar a esta unión y este traspaso (de lo
divino) y este deleite. Por eso dice Nuestro Señor (y es) muy
notable: «Bienaventurados son los pobres en espíritu» (Mateo 5,3).
Es pobre quien no tiene nada. «Pobre en espíritu» quiere decir:
así como el ojo es pobre y falto de color, siendo susceptible de
(ver) todos los colores, así el pobre en espíritu es susceptible de
aprehender toda clase de espíritu, y el espíritu de todos los
espíritus es Dios. El amor, la alegría y la paz son fruto del
espíritu. Estar desnudo, ser pobre, no tener nada, encontrarse
vacío, (todo ello) transforma la naturaleza: (el) vacío hace que el
agua suba por la montaña y (opera) otros muchos milagros de los que
ahora no es momento de hablar.'</i></div>
<br />
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2481"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(El libro de la consolación
divina. Consolación 2.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>'Si el hombre fuera capaz y estuviera en condiciones de vaciar
una copa por completo y de mantenerla vacía de todo lo que puede
llenarla, incluso el aire, la copa, sin lugar a dudas, renegaría de
su entera naturaleza, olvidándola, y (el) vacío la llevaría hacia
arriba en el cielo. Del mismo modo, el estado de desnudez, pobreza y
vacío respecto a todas las criaturas, eleva el alma hacia Dios.
Resulta también que la igualdad y el calor levantan hacia arriba. La
igualdad se atribuye, en la divinidad, al Hijo, el calor y el amor al
Espíritu Santo. Ahora bien, dice Salomón que todas las aguas, es
decir, todas las criaturas vuelven a fluir y a correr hacia su origen
(Ecl. 1,7). Por eso es necesariamente verdad lo que acabo de decir:
La igualdad y el amor ardiente elevan hacia arriba y guían y llevan
el alma hasta el primer origen del Uno que es «Padre» de «todos»,
en el cielo y la tierra (Cfr. Efesios 4,6). Así digo, pues, que (la)
igualdad nacida del Uno tira del alma hasta Dios tal como Él es el
Uno en su unión escondida, pues eso es lo que significa Uno. Para
ello disponemos de un símbolo evidente (offenbâr angesiht): cuando
el fuego material enciende la leña, una chispa obtiene naturaleza
ígnea y se iguala al fuego puro que está aferrado inmediatamente al
lado inferior del cielo. Enseguida se olvida y se deshace del padre y
la madre, del hermano y la hermana en esta tierra y sube corriendo
hacia el padre celestial. El padre de la chispa en esta tierra es el
fuego, su madre es la leña, su hermano y su hermana son las otras
chispas, a esas no las espera la primera chispa. Sube apurada hacia
su padre legítimo que es el cielo; pues, quien conoce la verdad,
sabe muy bien que el fuego, como fuego, no es el padre verdadero,
legítimo de la chispa. El padre verdadero, legítimo de la chispa y
de todo el ígneo es el cielo. Además hay que notar muy bien que
esta chispa no sólo abandona y olvida a su padre y a su madre, a su
hermano y a su hermana en esta tierra, sino que se abandona y se
olvida y se deshace también de sí misma (movida) por el amor para
llegar a su padre legítimo, el cielo, ya que necesariamente ha de
apagarse en el aire frío; sin embargo, quiere dar testimonio del
amor natural que tiene a su legítimo padre celestial.'</i></div>
<i></i><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>'(...)
Además, hay que saber también que en la naturaleza la impresión y
la influencia de la naturaleza suprema y más elevada, le resultan a
cualquier persona más deliciosas y agradables que su propia
naturaleza y ser. El agua corre, por su propia naturaleza, hacia
abajo, hacia el valle y en eso radica también su idiosincrasia. Mas,
bajo la impresión e influencia de la luna arriba en el cielo,
reniega y se olvida de su propia naturaleza y fluye cuesta arriba
hacia la altura y este flujo hacia arriba le resulta más fácil que
el flujo hacia abajo.'</i></div>
</i><br />
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2521"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(El libro de la consolación
divina. Consolación 2.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMiWrBD4ucicstYijpHeRTEoPkZQo75fClktSfgvhmT8j9i_ELQptjsFH1pfGJy0jNlKIdCUSqSRJVcccjjKw4mAucT2zc7B-FY_gIccO9VWFq_eb3mZ-TnTNxgGXxmVdkdQup72Pq-I/s1600/pluja.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMiWrBD4ucicstYijpHeRTEoPkZQo75fClktSfgvhmT8j9i_ELQptjsFH1pfGJy0jNlKIdCUSqSRJVcccjjKw4mAucT2zc7B-FY_gIccO9VWFq_eb3mZ-TnTNxgGXxmVdkdQup72Pq-I/s1600/pluja.JPG" height="425" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>'El cielo es más abarcador que todo lo que está por debajo
de él, por eso es también más noble. Cuanto más nobles son las
cosas, tanto más abarcadoras y universales son.'</i></div>
<br />
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2541"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón IV.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>'El alma no debe desistir nunca hasta que tenga el mismo poder
de obrar que Dios. Así opera junto con el Padre todas sus obras;
coopera simple y sabia y amorosamente.'</i></div>
<br />
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón
XXXI.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2201"></a>
<i>'El alma está insertada íntimamente en Dios. O mejor dicho: Dios
y alma son lo mismo, no hay diferencia. Así, el alma está mucho más
cercana a Dios que al propio cuerpo del hombre.</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2211"></a>
<i>Ah sí, en el Cuerpo de Nuestro Señor el alma está insertada en
Dios tan íntimamente que todos los ángeles, los querubines al igual
que los serafines, ya no conocen ni saben encontrar ninguna
diferencia entre ambos; ya que dondequiera que toquen a Dios, tocarán
el alma, y donde toquen el alma, (tocarán) a Dios. Nunca hubo unión
igualmente estrecha, porque el alma se encuentra unida a Dios mucho
más estrechamente que el cuerpo al alma, los que constituyen un solo
hombre.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Pláticas
instructivas. 20. Del Cuerpo de Nuestro Señor. Como se le ha de
recibir a menudo y de qué manera y con qué devoción.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2231"></a>
<i>'El alma toca Dios con las potencias supremas; debido a esto está
formada a (semejanza de) Dios.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2241"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2261"></a><br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>«Jerusalén»
significa lo mismo que una altura, según dije en (el convento de)
Mergarden. A lo que es en la altura se le dice: Desciende! A lo que
está abajo, se le dice: Asciende! Si tú estuvieras abajo y yo
estuviera por encima de ti, debería bajar hacia ti. Lo mismo hace
Dios; cuando tú te humillas, Dios baja desde arriba y entra en ti.
La tierra es la cosa más alejada del cielo y se ha acurrucado en un
rincón y está avergonzada y le gustaría huir del hermoso cielo, de
un rincón a otro. ¿Cuál sería entonces su casa? Si huye hacia
abajo, llega al cielo, si huye hacia arriba, tampoco lo puede eludir,
él la empuja hacia un rincón y le imprime su fuerza y la hace
fecunda.</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2601"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XIV.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2621"></a>
<i>'Dicen nuestros maestros [Aristóteles, De anima I t. 20.]: El
alma se llama fuego por la fuerza y el calor y el brillo que posee.
Otros dicen que es una chispa de naturaleza celestial. Los terceros
dicen que es una luz. Los cuartos, que es un espíritu. Los quintos,
que es un número. No encontramos nada que sea tan puro como el
número. Por eso querían darle al alma un nombre que fuera puro. En
los ángeles existe el número (se habla de un ángel, de dos
ángeles) también en la luz existe el número. Por eso se la designa
(al alma) de acuerdo con lo más desnudo y puro y, sin embargo, esto
no llega a tocar el fondo del alma. Dios que es sin nombre (no tiene
ningún nombre) es inefable y el alma, en su fondo, es igualmente
inefable tal como Él es inefable. La palabra que denomina al alma,
se refiere al alma cuando se encuentra en la prisión del cuerpo, por
lo que opina (San Juan) que el alma, al ser capaz de convertir
todavía (en objeto) de su pensamiento lo que ella es en sí misma,
se encuentra todavía en su prisión. Allí donde presta aún
atención a estas cosas bajas y donde recoge algo en su interior por
intermedio de los sentidos, allí se estrecha en seguida; pues (las)
palabras no son capaces de dar ningún nombre a ninguna naturaleza
que se encuentre por encima de ellas.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2631"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Dice un maestro: Así
como la vista nada tiene que ver con el canto, ni el oído con el
color, así el alma en su naturaleza nada tiene que ver con todo lo
que hay en este mundo. Por eso dicen nuestros maestros en ciencias
naturales [Aristóteles, De an. Y t. 90] que el cuerpo se encuentra
mucho más en el alma que el alma en el cuerpo. Así como la bota
contiene el vino antes de que el vino la bota, así el alma contiene
el cuerpo antes de que el cuerpo al alma.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2671"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XVII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'...También (las)
palabras tienen gran poder; uno podría obrar milagros con palabras.
Todas las palabras deben su poder al Verbo primigenio. También (las)
piedras tienen gran poder debido a la igualdad que producen en ellas
las estrellas y la fuerza del cielo. Si, pues, al igual es tan
poderoso en el igual, el alma ha de despegar a su luz natural hacia
lo más elevado y puro y entrar así en la luz angelical, llegando
con la luz angelical en la luz divina, y así debe estar parada por
entre los tres luces en el cruce de caminos, en las alturas donde se
encuentran las luces. Allí habla el Verbo eterno infundiéndole la
vida; allí el alma cobra vida y da su respuesta dentro del Verbo.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2701"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XVIII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'Todo como es ordenado,
debe haberse subordinado a lo que está por encima. Todas las
criaturas no le gustan a Dios cuando no las ilumina la luz natural
del alma, de la que reciben su ser, y cuando la luz del ángel no
ilumina la luz del alma y la prepara y dispone para que la luz divina
pueda operar en ella, porque Dios no opera en las cosas corpóreas,
opera (sólo) en (la) eternidad. Por eso el alma debe ser recogida y
elevada y debe ser espíritu. Allí opera Dios, allí todas las obras
le gustan a Dios. No hay ninguna obra que nunca le plazca a Dios a
menos que se realice allí.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2741"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XIX.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2761"></a>
<i>'Por la verdad pura del alma entra más en Dios de lo que (entra)
cualquier comida en nosotros, más aún: el alma es transformada en
Dios. Y en el alma hay una potencia que va segregando lo más basto y
está unida con Dios: ésta es la chispa del alma. Más que la comida
con mi cuerpo, mi alma se une con Dios.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2771"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XX a.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'El dueño envió a sus
criados (Lucas 14, 17). San Gregorio dice que estos «criados» son
la Orden de los Predicadores. Yo hablo de otro criado, que es el
ángel. Por lo demás, queremos hablar de un criado, al que ya me he
referido varias veces, y que es el entendimiento en la periferia del
alma donde toca la naturaleza angelical, siendo una imagen de Dios.
Dentro de esta luz, el alma se encuentra unida con los ángeles y
(incluso) con aquellos ángeles que han caído en el infierno y los
que, sin embargo, han conservado la nobleza de su naturaleza. Allí
se encuentra esta chispa, desnuda derecha sin ningún sufrimiento,
dentro del ser divino.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2801"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XX b.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2821"></a>
<i>'La tierra huye del cielo; si huye hacia abajo, llega desde abajo
al cielo, si huye hacia arriba, llega a la parte más baja del cielo.
La tierra no puede huir a un lugar tan bajo que el cielo no fluya en
ella y le imprima su fuerza y la fecundidad, lo quiera ella o no. Así
le sucede también al hombre que cree huir de Dios y, sin embargo, no
puede huir de Él; todos los rincones lo revelan. Cree huir de Dios y
corre a su seno. Dios engendra en ti a su Hijo unigénito, te guste o
te disguste, duermas o estés despierto; Él hace lo propio.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2831"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXII.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>'El profeta se
maravilla de dos cosas. En primer lugar, de lo que opera Dios con las
estrellas, con la luna y el sol. En segundo lugar, su sorpresa se
refiere al alma: que Dios hiciera y siga haciendo cosas tan grandes
con ella y por medio de ella, porque hace todo cuanto puede por amor
de ella. Hace muchas cosas grandes a causa de ella y se dedica
completamente a ella y esto se debe a la grandeza con que fue
creada.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2861"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXIV.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2911"></a>
<i>'Nadie puede recibir al Espíritu Santo a no ser que viva por
encima del tiempo en (la) eternidad. En las cosas temporales el
Espíritu Santo no puede ser ni recibido ni dado. Cuando el hombre se
aparta de las cosas temporales y se gira hacia su fuero íntimo,
percibe allí una luz celestial que ha venido del cielo. Se encuentra
por debajo del cielo y, sin embargo, es del cielo. En esta luz el
hombre queda satisfecho, y, sin embargo, ella es (todavía) corpórea;
dicen que es materia. Un (trozo de) hierro cuya naturaleza consiste
en caer hacia abajo, se levanta hacia arriba en contra de su
naturaleza y se aferra a la piedra imán debido a la noble influencia
que la piedra ha recibido del cielo. Dondequiera que se dirija la
piedra, hasta allí se dirige también el hierro. Lo mismo hace el
espíritu: no se contenta así sin embargo con esta luz; va avanzando
siempre por el firmamento y penetra a través del cielo hasta llegar
al espíritu que hace girar al cielo, y que debido a la rotación del
cielo reverdece y se cubre de hojas todo lo que hay en el mundo. Pero
el espíritu no está satisfecho si no avanza hasta la cima y la
fuente primigenia donde el espíritu tiene su origen.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2921"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXIX.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2941"></a><span lang="es-ES">'</span><span lang="es-ES"><i>Es
muy extraño el hecho de que algo emane y, sin embargo, permanezca
dentro. El hecho que la palabra emane y, sin embargo, permanezca
dentro, es muy raro, el hecho que todas las criaturas emanen y, sin
embargo, permanezcan dentro, es muy raro; lo que Dios ha dado y ha
prometido dar, es muy extraño, y es incomprensible e increíble. Y
está bien que así sea; pues, si fuera comprensible y creíble, no
estaría bien. Dios se encuentra en todas las cosas. Cuanto más está
dentro de las cosas, tanto más está fuera de las cosas: cuanto más
dentro, tanto más fuera, y cuanto más fuera, tanto más dentro. Ya
he dicho varias veces que en este instante Dios crea todo el mundo.
Todo lo creado alguna vez por Dios, hace seis mil y más años,
cuando hizo el mundo, Dios lo está creando ahora todo junto. Él se
encuentra en todas las cosas pero, cuando Dios es divino y Dios es
razonable, no se encuentra en ninguna parte con tanta propiedad como
en el alma y en el ángel, si quieres, en lo más entrañable del
alma y lo más elevado del alma. Y cuando digo: «lo más entrañable»
me refiero a lo más elevado, y cuando digo «lo más elevado» me
refiero a lo más entrañable del alma. En lo más entrañable y en
lo más elevado del alma: allí los concibo a ambos juntos en uno
solo. Allí donde nunca entró el tiempo, donde nunca cayó el brillo
de una imagen, en lo más entrañable y lo más elevado del alma,
crea Dios todo este mundo. Todo lo que creó Dios hace seis mil años,
cuando hizo el mundo, y todo lo que Dios tendrá que crear después
de mil años (con tal de que el mundo exista durante todo aquel
tiempo) lo crea Dios en lo más entrañable y lo más elevado del
alma. Todo el pasado y todo el presente y todo el futuro, lo crea
Dios en lo más entrañable del alma.'</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2951"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXX.)</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2971"></a>
<i>'Dios se esconde en la luz angelical y se cubre con ella esperando
continuamente el instante en que pueda arrastrarse hacia fuera para
entregarse al alma. He dicho también en otras ocasiones: Si alguien
me preguntara qué es lo que hace Dios en el cielo, diría: Engendra
a su Hijo y lo engendra completamente nuevo y lozano, y al hacerlo
siendo un deleite tal que no hace sino realizar esta obra.'</i></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box2981"></a>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>(Sermón XXXI.)</i></span></div>
<div lang="es-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-6532940474709611102014-08-05T17:41:00.000+02:002014-08-05T17:41:19.767+02:00Having experiences, doing experiments.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCytW_chXTzVohOwSjFtQqfovbtsJEn7B7BPVW_bvt8-MfdFriZw8Oxlp6s2n9Knd_TETmk321Zu_3IS0ltTjuX6OQShGc-ISlhmuVMn0Ixn2trAiuSS9NdKhppIm_TBCgp8IYiUcIOU/s1600/Thinking-Differently.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCytW_chXTzVohOwSjFtQqfovbtsJEn7B7BPVW_bvt8-MfdFriZw8Oxlp6s2n9Knd_TETmk321Zu_3IS0ltTjuX6OQShGc-ISlhmuVMn0Ixn2trAiuSS9NdKhppIm_TBCgp8IYiUcIOU/s1600/Thinking-Differently.jpg" height="218" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I find it
more understandable than ever that consciousness, thought, will,
morality, spirituality... are simple empirical phenomena that should
not pose any problem to positive science. It is true that for some
strange reason scientific positivism has generally been conceived as
totally antagonistic to the study of faith, spirituality and to the
sensitivities of the human soul in general. But, are these
psychological phenomena not like any other? Why must not science
study them? Did not about objective facts of experience?</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box113"></a>
Spirituality is a fact manifested in subjective experiences (all
psychological manifestations are subjective) that can be the subject
of scientific study, like any human behavior. These are personal,
measurable, real experiences, beyond the dogmas of religion.</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It will
seem paradoxical, but science and religion, in the background, they
share the same objective: to know the truth, understand the working
of reality. Simply. The raw material for scientific research are
empirical experiences, which are events of personal experience as any
other, as are, of course, spiritual or religious experiences.
Scientists simply create a specific, controlled conditions of
laboratory, in order to experience, in the broadest sense of the
word, events that do not occur regularly in everyday life. What is at
issue in science is to create the conditions for people who is
researching to experiment new phenomena. To experiment is to have
experiences, to compose certain conditions to have a personal
experience of perception of reality, as we have in any everyday
psychological experience at any time, or in a spiritual or emotional
or aesthetic or poetic experience.</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box114"></a>
Science and religion are (or should be) something very similar, if
not the same thing. Joan Mascaro said it in a straightforward
manner:<br /><br /><i>'The spiritual experience, as scientific
experiments, is based on the observation of facts.'<br />'There is
inner observation and experiment and outer observation and
experiment. From the first comes poetry, spiritual vision and all
human values; from the second, science and technology.'<br />'If
science is one, religion must be one. Science is based on experiment,
religion should be based on experience.'<br />'It's the experience that
matters, not the concept.'<br />'Pure consciousness should not be
affected by the experience: should observe the experience.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box115"></a>
Religion and science, in the background, share object and method:
observation of the facts of empirical experience. The difference
between religion and science is 'just' of perspective, is that
religion has an overall view of nature as a whole (which corresponds
to the idea of God), while science has a partial view of the
constituent parts of nature. So religion has to resort to the
contemplative observation and imagination to encompass the whole,
unable to reason or understand the discrete elements; while science
uses analytical thought and observation of isolated elements of a
complex whole that is very difficult to encompass item by item.
Religion needs of imagination to maintain overall articulation, needs
faith, needs to trust that things are or may be in a certain way,
because it can not observe or certify element by element, unlike
science. The problem with religion is that it fails to go deeply into
any subject in order to keep the vision of the whole, not depth
intelige any particular aspect of nature, has to conform to the faith
and 'contemplation'; while the problem of science is that it almost
never comes to appreciate the whole of reality, the real functioning
of the reality that is hidden because thoroughly analyzes elements
but is not able to articulate each other. The truth, or the
meaningful of truth, which is relevant to people, is beyond the scope
of science normally.</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box116"></a>
Mascaró says:<br /><br /><i>'Life avoids the microscope and the
telescope.'<br />'Appearance is the visible world, the reality is the
unseen world.'<br />'Imagination fills the visible things with a high
unseen meaning.'<br />'When you see the many forget the All.'<br />'God
is the All.'<br />'The world of the poet and of the artist is more real
than the object of physical science.'<br />'The poet sees the words in
contemplation, not in the mere thought.'<br />'Art is a way of
contemplation.'<br />'Intelligence deals with material things. It is
very important in science, but it can not deal with the spiritual
values and poetry.'<br />'Analyze the whole into its constituent parts
is useful; but what do you say about contemplation of all? Because
the whole is much more than its parts and the whole can not be
understood by analysis but by synthesis, synthesis of contemplation.
Contemplation is beyond thought.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box118"></a>
The important thing is to know the truth, understand the working of
reality either by way of science or by way of religion, it is
indifferent. The debate one way against the other is completely
sterile. The only thing that can bring us freedom and happiness is
empirical knowledge of the world, with the only tools of observation,
thought and imagination, regardless of the framework within they are
used. What is needed is to always go beyond, discover, keep
learning... Anything else is deadlock, empty words, dogma.<br />Knowledge,
which is to capture the order of nature and its future, is what makes
us free. Capturing intelligence or 'logos' that exist in nature is
like capturing God. The freedom and happiness of people lies
precisely in that, in understanding the world.</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box119"></a><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box120"></a>
<i>'The thought must have freedom to think. But there is only freedom
in truth. We are not free to think that 2 + 2 = 5! If we do we are
not free, we are in the bondage of error.' <br />'You are free to play
wrong notes on the piano, but that will not produce music. The
freedom to make music comes from playing the correct notes. '<br />'We
are not free to see the sun if we close our eyes.' </i>'As the
harp string is subject to fixed rules just get the freedom of
music.'<i><br />'The task of man on earth is to learn to read and
write, to read the life and to write the life.' <br />'There is only
one truth in the universe. Science is one and religion is one, but
there are many false religions.'<br />'The world needs a new religion,
a new philosophy of life free from dogmatism of science and
technology and free from dogmatism of organized religion.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box121"></a>
The true path is not science nor religion per se, but a harmony
between observation and imagination, a reciprocity between the two.
It is the way of observation directed by imagination, while
imagination controlled by observation. It is the way of empirical
reality, the truth that feeds on reality. The way of discovery. Of
imagination that raises new possibilities beyond thought, but at the
time verified its reality by thought.</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyQnzE07TqHDMaFB1tXyU4wE3aPlf55n3RRsyu_Ps7SEHucczthVqGjHbD58B8l083BydxBHaFaorJOVkwOZveG9p9oe9aC5nBWWyOiI3Aa7A8kna-YdYEVuAl_8cyOmvP7KXHDFcM7k/s1600/jmascaro_sinopsi_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyQnzE07TqHDMaFB1tXyU4wE3aPlf55n3RRsyu_Ps7SEHucczthVqGjHbD58B8l083BydxBHaFaorJOVkwOZveG9p9oe9aC5nBWWyOiI3Aa7A8kna-YdYEVuAl_8cyOmvP7KXHDFcM7k/s1600/jmascaro_sinopsi_1.png" height="211" width="320" /></a><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box122"></a><i>'Just
reason and spiritual imagination both together can do self-sufficient
man: reason and God who has given us the reason.'<br />'The ideas come
from the imagination.'<br />'What matters is an inner experience
verified by the wisdom of reason.'<br />'The actual apprehension of the
ultimate truth is available to all men.'<br />'Great things are beyond
words and insignificant things should be resolved in a few words.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Words
themselves do not lead reason. Reason lies in truth, and truth in
reality. What is at issue, then, is to do science, but empirical
science of things that really matter to people.</div>
Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-51213195850298101962014-07-09T17:00:00.000+02:002014-07-18T16:24:29.691+02:00Articulating Joan Mascaró<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }A:link { }</style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ549Gd18xpmW4JBOw-udfQucKd9rD9WXJAF3qoikqHtEqxilyN_Errjj_BOdTl1GGF1pAd13mR6YZUKmMi-AD9aIqdxR4o3XUhV56kaPNOz3RQTHkPaymhg0DJOY0CmeyjIULmry1FPs/s1600/jmd30pf007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ549Gd18xpmW4JBOw-udfQucKd9rD9WXJAF3qoikqHtEqxilyN_Errjj_BOdTl1GGF1pAd13mR6YZUKmMi-AD9aIqdxR4o3XUhV56kaPNOz3RQTHkPaymhg0DJOY0CmeyjIULmry1FPs/s1600/jmd30pf007.jpg" height="187" width="400" /></a></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'The Truth of the whole
universe stands in front of us every moment of our live.'<br />'Everything
is energy.'<br />'The sun of the Spirit shines on all things and is the
life of all things.'<br />'There is truth in this universe. We can call
it 'being of the universe' and it is in us and in everything.'<br />'The
God at our heart is also at the heart of everybody.'<br />'If you love
your life, love God, which is your life.'<br />'Everything in the
universe is a part of an infinite soul.'</i></div>
<div lang="ca-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box29"></a>Joan
Mascaro said that while <i>'in the West people talk about God of
Universe, in India talk about Soul of Universe'</i>. Indeed, the
conception of God as absolute spirit, as <i>Brahman</i>, is linked to
the idea that this God, spirit or <i>Brahman</i> is also a part of
us, deepest: our soul or <i>atman</i>. <i>Brahman</i> or God is part
of everything in the universe, that is to say that is everything. It
is what we can find in the whole of nature but is especially at our
soul, our heart, and equally at heart and soul of all people.</div>
<div lang="ca-ES" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box32"></a><i>'The
goal of soul is to become Spirit.'</i><br />
<br />
So my soul is (or will
be) the spirit of <i>Brahman</i> and is the same soul that
everybody's worldwide. And soul mean the will and intellect, called
higher functions of the mind. Reason and will are not exclussive of
man, created alone in him. They come from <i>Brahman</i>. It is
nature that behaves rationally and which gives rise to intentionality
in people. Intelligence is simply the order of nature that transcends
chance or random:</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box33"></a><i>'Because
you and I can become one 'Let your will be done' is 'Let my own will
be done.'<br />'Your will be done' means that the superior will and our
will can be one.'<br />'How can the blind nature behave so rationally
and with such a miraculous intelligence? Because reason and
intelligence are also in nature. The Spirit of creation creates
chance and fate and allows imperfection because perfection may arise
from this imperfection.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box34"></a>Linked
to the concept of God is the idea of the continuous matter-spirit.
Matter and spirit, happily, unlike what we use to think, are NO
different things. We can not and we must not distinguish between
matter and spirit. Matter is spirit and spirit is matter. All is one.
The matter is heavier and more dense, and the spirit is more subtle,
volatile or 'free', true, but the difference is purely quantitative:</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box42"></a><i>'If
we make an absolute distinction between matter and spirit we were
wrong.' <br />'The matter is thick spirit and spirit is subtle matter.'
<br />'The essence of the matter is the heaviness, the essence of
spirit is freedom.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box43"></a>Mascaró
in this regard claims that<br />
<br />
<i>'The matter is not material: it
is energy. It is the energy of love that moves the universe.'<br />'The
universe is driven by a spiritual force.'<br />'Everything is energy',
says the scientist. 'All is love', says the poet.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box54"></a>Being
of the spirit (or God) is in the sky, literally forever, right now.
What we call the spirit, then, is a form of matter that is invisible
and extending across the sky:<br />
<br />
<i>'Being in God is being in
heaven, even now.'</i><br />
<br />
There are visible and invisible
universe. Matter, perfectly, can be invisible, such as air. That
something is invisible does not mean it is immaterial. In fact, if
all is one, nothing real is immaterial.<br />
<br />
<i>'Behind the visible
universe we must feel the invisible universe.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box71"></a>What
we call spirit is merely a manifestation of matter, comes from
material phenomena. <br />
<br />
<i>'The ocean and the ocean waves are
one: Nirvana and Samsara are one.' <br />'The physical and the metaphysical are one, not two.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box88"></a>Then
we can say that what we call spirit 'interacts' with matter, because
this 'spirit' comes from and acts on matter. The Spirit uses matter,
is a manifestation of matter, is matter:<br />
<br />
<i>'The Spirit beyond
time uses matter and mind and life, that are in time.'<br />'Intertwined
with the world of matter there is the world of spirit, and the spirit
is Being, Consciousness and Bliss.'<br />'I am God: Pure Being'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
People are all different and
unique in our experience, but at the same time we are identical to
share the depths of the soul and the general ability to experience
<i>per se</i> (the Spirit). Our everyday life is very diverse and
variable, but we are all one in the background. We are all equal and
we should not reduce ourselves to any label, which shows only the
apparent. Each person is a soul that participates equally of Brahman
and each person, therefore, has the same value.</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'The small butterfly that
flies and passes along is unique in the entire universe. Much more is
each person. Look at each person as one in many and look at the many
in one.' </i>
</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'Every person is much
greater than appears. In his interior life each person is a soul.
Labels such as 'tourist' or 'rider' reduce the person to which they
apply.' </i>
</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'Our current life is the
shadow of our spiritual being.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In our daily life happens
that what we believe that we are normally is not really what we are.
We confuse our personal experience with the reality. We identify
ourselves with an aggregate of thoughts, memories, sensations... what
we experience and learn each time but that are not our real self. The
real being is <i>Brahman</i>, and us, like everything else, we are
also <i>Brahman</i>. Therefore, our innermost being is divine, as
recognize all religions. This is the primary message of the
Upanishads, which collects Joan.</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjexSocQOmb8daYzKIGybERLrgqvLEOjaGmyim3vRNnoeQiXyk8dBpV87MLmx0Yutm8M8HRXH_gL1_CIAYDiHx9E2oHh7-mwiG5f_Dj6F3rvnPw4R55kt7ET-P0ik-M2JQSpCC0Wsekig/s1600/Joan-Mascaro_Palma_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjexSocQOmb8daYzKIGybERLrgqvLEOjaGmyim3vRNnoeQiXyk8dBpV87MLmx0Yutm8M8HRXH_gL1_CIAYDiHx9E2oHh7-mwiG5f_Dj6F3rvnPw4R55kt7ET-P0ik-M2JQSpCC0Wsekig/s1600/Joan-Mascaro_Palma_2.png" height="320" width="222" /></a>We find <i>Brahman</i> at
the whole of nature, at the whole extension of the vast universe; but
the place where it is actually more accessible and is displayed by
most unambiguous terms is just within our interior. <i>'The God that
moves the universe also moves our hearts.'</i> God, <i>Brahman</i>,
Spirit... this is what lets us live and lets us think at each moment,
without necessarily being the content of our thought, because the
thought, although searches it, do not always find the truth. On the
contrary, very often thought is lost in the things of the world
without capturing its true order, without capturing the objective
reason of the real things. Except, of course, wise persons, which, in
addition to being themselves, as everybody, a manifestation of the
Spirit or <i>Brahman</i>, they capture this spirit with the thought
and they understand it. They find the truth in themselves. This is
reminded by Tao Te Ching, quoted in <i>Lamps of Fire</i>:</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'Without leaving my door</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I can hear all the things
of the earth. </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Without looking through
my window </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I see the paths of
heaven. </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Because as farther you
travel away </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>less you know. </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Wise therefore arrives
without traveling, </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>he see everything without
looking. </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>He does everything
without doing.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The vast majority of people
don't come to understand the origin of the movements of their
intellect and their will. We do not understand, at least not
entirely, to ourselves. 'Our' reason does not move by itself, it
doesn't auto-generate, it cannot understand to itself by itself:</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'The cause for that
reason can think is superior to reason.' </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'We cannot see with the
reason what's beyond reason.' </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'We live our lives with
our mind. Our life is a succession of mental events. The world of the
mind, conscience, is closer to us than the world of matter. We live
this world.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'The world of mind is
certainly closer to us than the world of matter: it is our inner
world where we live, where we experience happiness or misery, peace
or agitation, joy or sadness, pleasure or pain.' </i>
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'It's only when we
understand that we can forgive: when we see why we and others are in
the dark, then we can have the Spirit of the Gita in dealing with
people and things.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Intelligence is located, to
a large extent, in the outer nature. The nature, although is blind,
has in itself an order, some regularities, a 'logos', that our
intellect captures at the moment that we say that we capture the
truth. Our intelligence comes from the nature and is directed to the
nature.
</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'How can the blind nature
behave rationally and with such a miraculous intelligence? Because
reason and intelligence are also in nature.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'The Spirit of creation
creates random and hado and allows the imperfection, because of this
imperfection may arise the perfection.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
God is intelligence. In
other words: intelligence is that superior and 'divine' that we have,
is 'the deep soul' or 'spirit' itself. It is the most high, it is
which allows us access to knowledge of nature, when, in fact, the
thought is the truth of reality. But the thought also very often
loose us in the routinary content of ideas of everyday life that are
mere association and that do not provide true knowledge. In fact,
this is most common in the people that we are not wise. Then, in our
case, the intelligence is not the thought, but rather the absence of
thought. The first step toward wisdom is, therefore, to realize that
many times our thinking is erratic, and fails to find the truth:</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box91"></a><i>'The
Bhagavad Gita says that God is the thread that unites the worlds and
all things as in a group. Our thoughts always fly from one thing to
another, or, as a caterpillar, cling from leaf to leaf.'<br />'When
thought is silence, deep -or higher, which is the same- then we can
see eternity between two thoughts.' <br />'There is a silence that is
beyond reason.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box92"></a><i>'The
"I am" within us is deeper than what occurs within our
understanding.' <br />'With thoughts alone, we can only get more
complicated thought. We can not have anything above thought.'<br />'The
thought alone can never reach the essence of the universe.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box93"></a>The
soul, reason, intellect, access to knowledge of the 'logos' of
nature, trascend us. They are not truly our creation, but we are
rather a manifestation of them. They are the manifestation of
<i>Brahman</i>, the outer spirit, acting in our hearts.</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box94"></a><i>'The
soul that never dies is not something that belongs to us, but
something to which we belong.' <br />'We are in the world, but we are
not of the world.' <br />'Man is a spiritual being. It has a body, but
the Spirit is the owner of the body.'<br />'Infinity and Eternity are
always with us.' <br />'God in his essence: eternal rest. God in his
people: eternal work '</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box95"></a>So
we are not real actors or anything nor active agents. Our mind is
moved by something superior that is real (Spirit, God...), while the
product of our mind, the contents of our thoughts do not correspond
with realities normally but are wishful thinking. Things just happen.
Thoughts just happen, apart of its true. In this consists the
reality.</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box96"></a><i>'There
are no problems: there are only facts.' <br />'Solving a problem is a
fact. The greater peace of mind, the easier <br />to find the solution.
Any concern, agitation or fear hinders the solution.'<br />'There is
suffering, but not sufferer. There are actions, but not an actor.
There is a way, but not a traveler.' <br />'It happens' is wisdom. 'It
happens to me' is ignorance.'<br />'Anxiety, fear, anger, agitation,
are all illusions, not realities.' <br />'Mastering the mind should be
as a breeze. Do not let the illusion of ego says 'I have an idea.' Do
not do subjective what is objective.'<br />'The true consciousness has
no subject.' <br />'These thoughts are not 'mine', because they happen
and I just watch them.' <br />'Consciousness is one, but the objects of
consciousness are many.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box97"></a>If
intelligence and thought always would lead us to knowledge of reality
and truth, we would enjoy absolute freedom and happiness, but, as we
see, that happens with difficulty and usually does not succeed.
However, we can approach. We can acknowledge mistakes and do not be
fooled by what is apparent, to become aware, at least, of our
limitations. We can stop the movements of mind when ideas move us
away of truth instead bringing us closer to truth.</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box98"></a><i>'When
with a clear mind we consider the ideas, we are on the right path;
but when with a confused mind we are possessed by ideas, we are in
the path of darkness.'<br />'The problems are not problems if thought
does not let them to be.'<br />'Happiness is to stop the movement of
the mind.'<br />'If we stop the movements of the mind, we can feel the
Spirit of God.'<br />'When the mind is silent we can hear the voice of
God.'<br />'The pure perception occurs when we stop the movement of
mind.'<br />'Observation is relaxation.'<br />'Relax your life in a
greater life.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box99"></a><i>'There
is a music of the mind, and the silence of the mind.'</i> Mascaro
said. In addition to the path of 'silence', or thought stopping,
there is the path of the 'music of the mind', or the effective
articulation of thought. This 'music' is a harmony between
observation and imagination, a reciprocity between them. It is the
way of observation directed by imagination, while imagination
controlled by observation. It is the way of empirical reality, the
truth that feeds of reality. The way of discovery. The way of
imagination that raises new real possibilities.</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box100"></a>Imagination
is very different from the fantasy: imagination, well directed,
conceives or intuits new realities beyond our knowledge. It makes us
to be active. The fantasy takes us into the ghosts of our
'knowledge', it does not question nothing, does not bring nothing
new. It keeps us passive:</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box101"></a><i>'Imagination
is active. Fantasy is passive. Imagination awakens us: fantasy makes
us sleep.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>'Only reason and spiritual
imagination both together can make man self-sufficient: reason and
the God that has given us the reason.' <br />'The ideas come from the
imagination.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box102"></a><i>'Imagination
is a light and inner fire.' <br />'Imagination is an intensity of
consciousness.' <br />'What matters is an inner experience verified by
the wisdom of reason.' <br />'It's the experience that matters, not the
concept.' <br />'Intuition is an experience, not a thought.' <br />'Pure
consciousness should not be affected by the experience: should
observe the experience.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box103"></a>Knowledge,
which is to capture the order of nature, is what makes us free.
Capturing intelligence or logos in nature is like capturing God. The
freedom and happiness of people lies precisely in that, in
understanding the world, or at least not being fooled by appearances
of daily life and recognizing the errors to mantain chances to know
and understand in future. This is the salvation by knowledge.</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box104"></a><i>'The
thought must have freedom to think. But there is only freedom in
truth. We are not free to think that 2 + 2 = 5! If we do we are not
free, we are in the bondage of error. '<br />'You are free to play
wrong notes on the piano, but that will not produce music. The
freedom to make music comes from playing the correct notes.'<br />'We
are not free to see the sun if we close our eyes.'<br />'As the harp
string is subject to fixed rules just get the freedom of music.'<br />'The
task of man on earth is to learn to read and write, to read and write
the life.'<br />'The brain is my instrument of thought. I feel that my
brain is my servant.'</i><br />
Pointed Mascaró.</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box105"></a>What
we need to do is to properly direct our minds to distinguish what is
real and what is not real, ignore what is illusory and chimerical
(invention of our mind) to see what is pure and immediate in nature,
however simple it should be, because what exists in reality is all
that matters, as it can not be otherwise. This is to capture the
'grace of God', which is continuously given us. It is to shed light
on the 'blind' nature. It is not to go against nature but join it and
move on with it. It is to enter in nature and stay at reality. It is
the way of empirical reason, so frequently underestimated...</div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box106"></a><i>'The
whole of the universe is always everywhere, and we can only direct
our mind towards this whole to be one in will with the whole.'<br />'The
grace of God is given continuously, but we need our own capacity to
receive it.'<br />'Walking the road is joining the deeper forces of
Nature.'<br />'The actual apprehension of the ultimate truth is
available to all men.'<br />'Yes and No are only true in logic, not in
life.'<br />'In silent meditation we learn how to act, not how to
react.'<br />'We know the mind. We must control the mind. We must free
the mind. '<br />'We must not be governed by the mind: we must govern
the mind.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box107"></a>It
may seem paradoxical but science and religion have really the same
task: to know the truth, understand the working of reality. They also
share the same method: empirical reason. God and nature are the same,
matter and spirit are the same. All is one. We must just focus on
what is real and avoid fanaticism of reason by reason, metaphysics,
empty words.</div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box108"></a><i>'The
spiritual experience, as scientific experiments, is based on the
observation of facts.'<br />'If science is one, religion must be one.
Science is based on experiment, religion should be based on
experience.'<br />'There is only one truth in the universe. Science is
one and religion is one, but there are many false religions.'<br />'The
world needs a new religion, a new philosophy of life free from the
dogmatism of science and technology and free from dogmatism of
organized religion.'<br />'We need less fanaticism and more compassion
and understanding.'<br />'Fanaticism allows people to be cruel and to
have a good conscience at the same time.'<br />'Great things are beyond
words and insignificant things should be resolved in a few words.'</i></div>
<div lang="zxx" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box109"></a>And
finally: As the highest of the mind transcends our individuality and
is real and eternal as pure matter, we can say that we, in the higher
functions of the mind, in the real thing that comes from outside and
that affects our soul (God, <i>Brahman</i>, Spirit ...) are also
immortal:<br />
<br />
<i>'For us there is an ego that may be old, or sick,
or can die: but above it there is a spirit that can not be old, or
sick, or can not die.'<br />'The 'I am' is not born and therefore can
not die.'<br />'As I am universal my private situation does not
exist.'<br />'The Kingdom of Heaven does not exist just after physical
death, but it is something eternal that exists before, during and
after life and is eternally available.'<br />'The soul can not die
because it is beyond life and death. Beyond our mortal body we have
our immortal soul.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="result_box110"></a><i>'The
immortality of man is a part of the immortality of God.' <br />'God is
the life of our life.' <br />'The earth looks flat and the sun appears
to rise and set. The man seems to born and die.'<br />'The Spirit
becomes a living soul, and takes a body to have experience.' <br />'There
is no death. There is only the end of a light and a new light
illuminates us.'<br />'While a man is alive we do not know if he's his
body, or he is in his body, or he is else different of his body. How
can we say that after death of his body he is dead?'<br />'Is there a
God, a soul, a life after death? These questions can not be answered
with thought; are beyond thought, and only our Being beyond thought
can answer.'<br />'That which is beyond our birth and our death can not
die.' <br />'In the Being there is no death.' <br />'The body dies, but
we are more than the body.' <br />'The Real can not be finished.'<br />'The
unreal does not exist, the Real never ceases to exist.'</i></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
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Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-77954042145033289172014-04-01T17:49:00.001+02:002014-04-03T19:11:43.170+02:00Mind of dog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiisn6kaDDn8N2YVhZqdDEJUmLlM5zyekTkDSlMr7RO-mEuOaSvm7sjhz2NFHmaAEDW_wvMLACinm4C0KLpjUmst_MMoFdIQsMo1oF9mF7EVVsgazUu9FPEhf0Yu8KYZaKuxzav1ss07ug/s1600/P3130123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiisn6kaDDn8N2YVhZqdDEJUmLlM5zyekTkDSlMr7RO-mEuOaSvm7sjhz2NFHmaAEDW_wvMLACinm4C0KLpjUmst_MMoFdIQsMo1oF9mF7EVVsgazUu9FPEhf0Yu8KYZaKuxzav1ss07ug/s1600/P3130123.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Do you remember I mentioned to you the vision of a mouser trying to cross the road? It let me thinking…<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 35.4pt;">
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It was early morning, I was driving to work. The road was fairly busy at that time. The mouser was just outside a gate at the side of the road and tried to cross it, with great difficulty. It looked very uneasy and nervous. Its movements didn’t appear to follow an established plan. As soon as it was up it was down, always along the road. It looked right and left in a disorderly manner. I saw it to make some attempts to cross just when passing a truck or a car, aborted attempts, fortunately, at the last moment before the wheels of vehicles catch it. Given this fact, it increased its anxiety and hyperactivity. The moments that could have crossed, did not. It seems clear that the situation completely overflowed it, had no control whatsoever. It looked but did not know what to watch, had no criteria for deciding when to cross. But did not desist in their attempts, but quite the opposite. Immersed in some kind of loop or short circuit, failed attempts and imminent danger increased its insistence, to almost frenzy. At that time I thought poor dog was doomed to inevitable death, and that it was itself who focused on it with its limited mind of dog. I also thought that it probably would be better if it could do without its own judgment and simply cross the road without any consciousness and total distraction, to do so following the issuance of a limited mind that led directly to the disaster.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I thought later that the people we should go just as that dog. We are engaged in occupations of everyday life with our limited mind, in a sort of loop that we are unable to transcend. The concerns, desires, goals... in principle, should be used to develop orderly behaviour, planned and directed in order to meet our needs. But often, paradoxically, the way that people have to order the world it does is alter the natural order of things. So our intentional activity can lead us directly to disaster. Like the dog, by simple chance, should have ignored the sole discretion to decide when and how to cross the road, we should also ignore our human judgment and rather trust and have faith in the natural ‘order of things’ (‘delegate to the will of God’ as Eckhart had said in a religious way).<o:p></o:p></div>
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It's like the episode of Simon's boat that Tauler referred and you review on <i>L’actitud contemplativa</i>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>‘(Jesus) went up into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to depart a little dirt, sat down and instructed the people from the boat.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>When he finished speaking, he said to Simon,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>- Into deep and pull the fishing nets.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Simon answered<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>- Master, we have worked all night and caught nothing, but since you say so, I will let down the nets.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>They did so, and gathered so much fish that their nets began to break.’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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You add: '<i>Tauler focuses on the order given by Jesus to Simon. Go to deep water, stay away from the shore and place the boat where there is more water over the abyss (...) Tauler imagine a huge lake, becomed an ocean, and the center of the lake where the water is deeper becomes an unfathomable and frightening abyss. There man is suspended on its own emptiness, because he is experiencing the most extreme fragility.'<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjju_ZcUI4TVGjnhgd9VgnlbMXPM1n30opv4wkgprcdm193_jku18JV0ulNo8fqNcMF3MZ2ql7KwS-WgJ0VLLaqtr-LulH-US167V3whpdvq-wiZ0-4BFpdF2L0OQlF4bfuMz0rEdvoZI/s1600/P3130173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjju_ZcUI4TVGjnhgd9VgnlbMXPM1n30opv4wkgprcdm193_jku18JV0ulNo8fqNcMF3MZ2ql7KwS-WgJ0VLLaqtr-LulH-US167V3whpdvq-wiZ0-4BFpdF2L0OQlF4bfuMz0rEdvoZI/s1600/P3130173.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span style="text-indent: 35.4pt;">Simon, victim of fear, avoid the abyss of deep water and tries fishing near the shore, with no results. Asserts his discretion by imposing his personal wrong order to the natural order of things. Jesus makes him fall into his error and shows the true order of nature, and Simon transcends its limited look. He no longer see the deep waters as a terrifying abyss but as a suitable place to fish, if it is able to naturally accept his weakness and his place in the order of nature, and is able to contain his fear.</span></div>
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The mouser may learn to cross the road if someone shows how to do it, accepting the inevitable inherent danger, it could contain its anxiety. We haven’t to do suicidal behavior, but to distance ourselves from what we worry about, from worrying about things rather, from what we are absorbed about and captures our attention. It's about being able to redirect attention from the affection that things cause on us, to things as they really are in nature, to its natural harmony. It is an ‘objective’ (and ‘scientific’) look to the harmony of the world. We must look beyond our limited vision and meet the natural order of things, that has always existed. Because when we use our way of thinking, without realizing that, we turn away from it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In this everyday situation in which ‘the flower do not becomes fruit’ is necessary self-restraint and to trust on the existence of what we do not see or know yet. An act of faith in the existence of a ‘superior’ order, an ‘intelligence’ beyond ours and beyond present, is necessary. We must believe in the existence of a ‘logos’ we don’t yet know but that we can do on future. This is the open attitude that scientific people must have, exactly the same that religious people must have.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Usually we are in a similar to the mouser situation, or to Simon before Jesus' teaching situation. With our idea of how things of the world must be, immersed in relativism of everyday life, we subvert the harmony of how they really are, and we do not let them show us their potentials.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It's no delusion to say that things are now in a certain way and that they change in future. The truth of things is the transition from potencies to acts. It is the flower that bears fruit, it is the child who grows up... The truth that Simon discovers is that he can (and he should) fishing on middle of the lake. For mouser maybe someday the truth will be it will cross the road. What to do, therefore, is to watch for the potential of things and let nature to be revealed. Exactly the same for science and religion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Saint Augustine's quote is fine: <i>‘Do not try to feel what we want, but wanting what we feel’</i>. When we attend adequately the nature and focus on what really matters to us, to what we feel, we create a feeling, and sooner or later it appears as it really is, the potency becomes act and we found perfectly the truth, with no mistaking. This is the criterion of truth, common to science and religion: the becoming of potency onto act. The path to lead us to the discovery of truth (scientific or empirical or of any kind) then it is none other than the containment of our ideas and conditions at the moment, to meet the (real) natural order of the world as it shows along time, wich we do not grasp at the moment but whose existence we must believe firmly. This attitude finally ends up being rewarded with the discovery of truth. The road indeed leads us somewhere, but maybe we do not know exactly where or how long will be until we arrive... Of course, until the power become act.</div>
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Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8429672753444883361.post-18584382808645761152014-02-27T10:14:00.002+01:002014-02-27T10:14:51.668+01:00Reality, thought and time.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOdP4m6kOz53-hTdVwDLIMtbVcUvmAHrLdijoyZQ1_aXUcUi_iZ51OHWlBJTdJkdH4f0avXVzmoyTkT2fQ8Jtd7c6SWXsOCr91ZrpzmiFFAN7cLRgMEfJwclqS8V5QkYTP2ISkIGtI-S0/s1600/P1240160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOdP4m6kOz53-hTdVwDLIMtbVcUvmAHrLdijoyZQ1_aXUcUi_iZ51OHWlBJTdJkdH4f0avXVzmoyTkT2fQ8Jtd7c6SWXsOCr91ZrpzmiFFAN7cLRgMEfJwclqS8V5QkYTP2ISkIGtI-S0/s1600/P1240160.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Thinking is 'lead to presence', 'to present' or 'do present' something in
consciousness, whatever it is. This is precisely the present time: to think. It
is true, an irrefutable truth, that we always think and we always are now, as
Descartes realized. At all times we think or we feel or we are doing something
now. Present is what joints thinking and being.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To think is to present a content or an idea, do present, but also we create
the past and the future from the present. Always we are and always we accede to
things in a mental action of present.
The act of consciousness is instantaneous. We think (and dream and feel and
are) at present. But the content of thought (or dream, or feeling...) refers to
events of the past or the future, if you look. And they are just that: contents,
ideas, fallible products of our mind. We think on possibilities of acts of past
or future, heartfelt or less, believed or less. We invent the past and the
future, which are probably false, because they are what they are: a
construction of thought. They are not reality, they are the result of the act
of thinking (not the reality of the act itself).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The contents of thought take us out of the present and lose us in the time that
they create, with they disappear the 'truth' and is imposed 'subjectivity'. Objective
present and reality are not accessible to our subjective consciousness. The
future and the past, in contrast, are only ideas, necessarily far from the
reality of the present. The real flow of present is beyond our thoughts. The
contents of thought are always far from the reality of the present. It is a
paradox: thought takes us away from reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The past and the future are the times of ideas, the times of mental contents.
Our thoughts are about what has happened (past) or what can happen (future).
Moreover, the past and the future, what has happened and what can happen, can
only be thought, has no more presence than as an idea. The present, however, is
an act, an intuition outburst but not a thought or a developed mental content. Present
is time of true events, of objective reality of
events and actions that simply happen instantly. Present is the act of
showing things itself, but not the things shown. The actions of present (it is
a redundantly talk because actions occur always at present) affect us, necessarely,
because they are the real thing that exists and happens, but they do so in a
strange way, because its nature is not the mental content or knowledge, they are
not almost visible or perceptible to us the instant that occur, they can not
become ideas rather than later. Arround immediacy we can only intuit (this is why
intuition is more useful than eleborated thought, it is much closer to present
and reality).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The present is thinking and act. Every act of life has its temporality in
the objective present, always happens in the present. But thinking is unique in
that is the constitutional act of 'subjective reality' of human existence, that
is, its contents give the way to the past and future, create temporality and
subjective reality, create the mental world. The present is the act of thinking
(and feeling and imagine and understanding...) itself; it is to exist, it can
not be more than the present, it is what is real, not mentally yet, of the
psychic act, what has not yet caught the thought because it is still generating
it, it is what is undefined and inconceivable the instant that happens. The
rest, the past and the future, on the contrary, are ideas, are the subjective
world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The present is the 'reality principle', as opposed to the 'world of ideas'
in which we extend the past and future of the content of thought.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The reality of acts of thinking is terribly elusive: thinking is not a
thought or knowledge, it is the action that produces them, action that can not
be thought itself, or if not, it becomes a thought and fades away, escapes of
their size, loses nature of act of objective present. Thinking is condemned to
remain as hidden reality. And the past and the future are rationality, mental
content, known possibility, but not real, just a possibility, interpreted,
thought, believed: invented at the end. Unrealistic and 'false', therefore. So
our world is made of hidden reality and of false thoughts... and we are
continuously deployed by the contents of our thoughts to the mistake, once and
again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Only if we play an smart sensibility we head, even at moments of insight,
towards positivity of empirical reality, in a back and forth between thought
and reality. Without this empirical intelligence or sensibility only remains
the continued madness of subjective elaborated thoughts, false, conventional reason
and opinion, in the paradoxical appearance of possessing absolute truth when we
are farther from it. This is the reason insensible to reality, the reason by
reason.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5IkQlVDRxutjcvE40bS8k8H91ZVSWKI8bacQpmWtXgrLeKr2Gmk55uk4SBErfdPk39ZxiS5NSKNqXlY6P4JUdK7f9UCdygVsWUwTi9X1bu8WuwKocMlv-MWvp9L72acmJ6BL0K8dNhOI/s1600/P1240142.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5IkQlVDRxutjcvE40bS8k8H91ZVSWKI8bacQpmWtXgrLeKr2Gmk55uk4SBErfdPk39ZxiS5NSKNqXlY6P4JUdK7f9UCdygVsWUwTi9X1bu8WuwKocMlv-MWvp9L72acmJ6BL0K8dNhOI/s1600/P1240142.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>Why is the reality that is? What sustains the chained events, the realities
that happen? Alain Finkielkraut asked. No way to know, he answered. Even things
that we need to know we do not know. What are our motives, the internal logic
and the meaning of the acts? It is creepy what we do not know. We think we know,
but we do not really know. Although we believe otherwise, we do not know even
what will happen, what we will think or what we will feel the next hour. Nor do
we really know why happened what happened just now, or for an hour, but we always
seem to be convinced to know everything. Our thoughts and knowledges, by
themselves, do not allow us to know a lot about reality. On the contrary, often
constitute a network of wrong ideas and we will see that reality disassembled
again and again, we’ll observe if we test, as suggested Josep Pla referring to
the ideas of our complete biography.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ignorance is not a knowledge gap, however, is the folly of too much
certainty we need to dismantle, Alain Finkielkraut argues magnificently in ‘<i>Un coeur intelligent’</i>. The reason that
justifies itself, than for its survival should disregard reality, the reason
that it is not sensible, is terrible. And reason exactly has a tendency to do
just that, unfortunately, to become subjective, to lose its objective measure,
to do not question itself. "<i>The
dream of reason produces monsters</i>". The rule of reason becomes the
drama of reason, where the world becomes allegory, a world in which the
doctrines and dogmas are more alive than life, and ideas replace reality. The
concepts and names are more real and tangible than beings. We run a veil of
narrative texture on things, we do not stop using and producing stories,
continuosly, always conventionally reasoning, Finkielkraut says. We turn everything
that happens into words in a plot of predetermined and predictable arguments. We
build a wall of representations and thoughts, completely fictional, that
separates us from reality, including our personal reality. What is particular,
different and diverse stops mattering. The concrete reality, each of the
realities cease to matter. Even people cease to matter, because they are
subjected to something that matters more: to a political, religious, identity…
doctrine, whatever, that instead of trying to envision how it is, dictates how
the world should be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Finkielkraut picks it up in some sensitive and intelligent literary
readings, to alert us. As does Heidegger from philosophy, who dismantled
metaphysics as an excess and disproportion of reason, from the finding of the
paradox that the lighting itself (think) is not shown, in favor of the lit thing
(thought) that it does, and thus inscribed metaphysics and ontology into the
phenomena of personal experience, within the show (or not) of things: in the
empirical dimension of manifestation of things. With Heidegger metaphysics
becomes empirical, a natural manifestation of the world, accessible in a
varying degree, sometimes with great difficulty but still accessible, not to
reason but to intelligent observation and to the method of science, eminently
empirical.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Everything would be easier, surely, if we admit that the time, strictly
speaking, does not exist, but thinking and thought, mental activity and mental
content. People are like a kind of machine that makes its own time, a machine
set in the present that creates the illusion of past and future, of cause and
effect. A machine that plots ideas about what may have happened and what can
happen, farther or closer to the marks we put on the clock and the calendar,
but has almost no information on its own mechanics, does not capture the thinking
itself, the act. Does not capture the precise moment, nor, therefore, the successive
moments, its true causality. This machine can not know itself. Knowledge is the
content of thought, not the action of thinking. The product never is the
process that produces it, is something different, this is inevitable. The
machine can not do anymore than withdraw explain itself by mechanisms that
actually do, and try to be understood and justified by its product, that are
just thoughts. We are a machine that does not understand nor governs itself, we
have to admit. We have the illusion that we do, even a great need to believe in
it, a practice and very “<i>reasonable</i>”
need, but, basically, everything stays on justifications and excuses, pure
fickle ideas that don’t give us neither understanding nor real control of ourselves,
only its fantasy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But happens that we are subordinated to what our ideas and plans are. Man
is thus the measure of things. And "<i>as
more exclusively he conceives himself, as subject, as the measure of things, more
equivocal is the measure</i>". In hold onto the apparent, in going back
and forth between the near and habitual ideas (attitude that Heidegger calls “<i>insistence</i>”) is where lies the error, in
the sense of aimlessly roaming. This is precisely the source of the errors that
disfigure and hide the reality. Subjectification of reality is trivialization
of reality. Succeeds when we put into words, to give it a narrative texture, by
reasoning after all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are lost in the narrative time in everyday pre-established knowledge, by
definition wrong, that is a simple mental habit and a reflex response,
associations of the most common, easiest, and most ordinary conventional ideas.
Man, hopelessly, attends the ideas, becomes helpful to ideas and strays into
them. He forgets himself in the spontaneous evolution of thought, precisely in
the conviction to do the real thing and attending the need of maintaining
consistency with himself. Recklessly, he equals his being to the set of
personal ideas, he reduces to it, not realizing that the truth belongs to the
realm of reality and not to the realm of thought.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxpViCWNJzbU2An5rRtpjArI_n0iH6vVZHDJ6SKOOFUHHy5HCsgm9bVUMwblBvPfu3zRNps2iYq_7kbsqGkdGvURWJLqhDQGqaiZ7PkKwts4w7xevw8vQlJrIDSHvqL8-L9UC0iuvEhc/s1600/P1240135.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxpViCWNJzbU2An5rRtpjArI_n0iH6vVZHDJ6SKOOFUHHy5HCsgm9bVUMwblBvPfu3zRNps2iYq_7kbsqGkdGvURWJLqhDQGqaiZ7PkKwts4w7xevw8vQlJrIDSHvqL8-L9UC0iuvEhc/s1600/P1240135.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>The truth is not a system of propositions that can be invoked. It is not a
formality. Present and reality (events) are the carriers of truth, because truth
appears at the time they are shown, it presents in them. Truth can never be a correction
trial we make based on predefined ideas, because if we force so against nature,
sooner or later, we completely disregard the objective becoming of reality, and
we forget, deform and destroy truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thank you, Alain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Joan Torellóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03638057210297598741noreply@blogger.com0