The story of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll, follows how Alice, who is either confused or else dissatisfied with the mundane or predictability of events in her life, follows a rabbit who is ‘preoccupied with time’ into a hole in the ground, whereupon Alice experiences a world of fantasy, later to emerge all the wiser through her experience.
The story engages
with imagination, as if to explore meaning in a realm which is beyond any
certainties or constraints of time itself. It has all of the characteristics of
mythology, the ‘quest’ or ‘hero’s journey’.
It is fascinating in
that as humans, we appear to strive for certainty and increasing efficiency in
the world, fashioning the very tools and machinery to bring this goal about; yet
at the same time, we seem to need and to create stories and opportunities for
‘time out’ and for the chaotic to emerge from the very orderly mode of our
thinking. Are we our ‘best selves’ in the midst of uncertainty? Why then, are
we not collectively joyous in what we are experiencing – why do we continue to
search for and to hold a space for something ‘better’ and for meaning? Do we
exist for any given purpose or is that for us to decide?
The philosopher
Parmenides, in his work ‘On Nature’, reveals that the goddess informs him that
‘justice and the right’ has put him on his current trajectory, which is to know
what is true and of what is opinion (opinion is given as of not believing in
what is true but is also shown as being necessary through what is just).
Consider as is
revealed through the poem: justice is not in conflict with untruth or opinion (or
imagination) but creates ‘space’ (and here I will add ‘time’ as being
representative of movement of mind) in which one’s belief can play out. There
are no adversaries of ‘light and dark’ or ‘good and evil’ (or order and chaos)
other than in the nature of one’s own thoughts whereby one can experience and
come to know what is just.
Going back to the human
malaise or otherwise urge to improve upon ‘what is’, does this indicate not for
one to change the world but to adjust the lens of how one perceives the world?
Most people are familiar with Gandhi’s quote “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world
are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the
tendencies in the world would also change.”
How then, are we
called to perceive the world and to recognise what is just, which is to say
truth? The goddess informs Parmenides that the starting point of one’s thoughts
should be in the knowing and conviction of ‘what is’ and that it could not be
otherwise. This is the knowing that has arisen from within one’s own experience
and is not derived from the experience or ‘truths’ of others or otherwise by
conjecture.
I will add that knowing
one’s experience (which is to say, truth) is not as straightforward as it
sounds, given as one has to weed out one’s bias or prejudice and this can
require unwavering focus and contemplation – hence the space or time as is
necessary for this transition to occur.
The goddess informs
Parmenides that the path of ‘is not’ or ‘could otherwise be’ is untrustworthy –
that is to say, it is not in truth and is unjust.
Is this ‘diversion of
paths’ from that which is true and just, to that which is not, representative
of one’s will or inertia? Is one literally escaping into ‘fantasy’ to avoid having
to acknowledge what is true? Is it that as one does this, one will find it
increasingly hard to discern one’s truth and of what is just: as if one is
stood in a hall of mirrors trying to discern which mirror is one’s true
reflection or ‘one true good’? Further, does one enter into conflict with the
reflections of others who are equally convinced of their ‘one truth’?
Consider for a moment
the gnostic tale of Sophia or wisdom, said to be the lowest aeon as she had
fallen from grace in some way and had helped to create the material world. In
some versions, it is given that Sophia (wisdom) had tried to emanate without
her syzygy or because she had endeavoured to go beyond what is knowable (which
was to compromise her truth). A higher aeon had to restore wisdom, which is to
say that which had been thought to truth.
The goddess advised
Parmenides that all thought and what is spoken of in the world must proceed
from ‘what is’, as it is only possible for ‘what is’ (just and true) to be (to
exist); it is not possible for ‘what is not’/untruth to exist.
Consider how ‘what is
not (in truth or just)’ is impermanent – time effectively is the great healer –
unless the nature of the will resists ‘what is’ and employs force, given as it
is trying to paddle upstream?
What is particularly interesting
is that the goddess, in urging for Parmenides to know how to discern between ‘what
is’ and what can exist (given as it is true and just) and ‘what is not’, points
out that mortals, when they do not know this, literally ‘wander (as in dwell or
meander) in two minds’.
This implies that the
intellect recognises what is true and just and that only right thinking can
proceed from this; also that ‘untruth’ breaks (or diverges) from the intellect
in some way (as Sophia did?), which is what creates trails within the temporal.
The intellect is anchored in truth and can be our guide back to ‘what is’,
providing that we can locate its essence as within ourselves and differentiate
from all of the untruths.
The goddess informs
Parmenides that the point of departure from the knowing (the truth) of ‘what is’
is through uncertainty – ergo to question and to abandon one’s truth and to
propose that something else might be true or is preferable instead.
Is this ‘departing of
one’s truth’, as the goddess describes it, a coping mechanism of the mind,
intended so as to process an experience which has occurred? The thought around
which it revolves becomes an origin of itself, proceeding into what is an unconscious
(blindfolded) web of untruths? It would suggest that the human psyche is
divided, finding its abode between what is true and what is not.
Gandhi suggested that
all the tendencies found in the outer world are to be found in the human body,
particularly of strife and conflict. Consider that conflict arises because it
is not possible to ‘prove’ (to make certain), that ‘what is not’ is – an
untruth cannot become truth, no matter how much pressure or force is exerted;
the destiny of an untruth and of what is not just is to fall.
Jesus said, “… Every kingdom divided against itself is
brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not
stand.” Matthew 12:25
The goddess advises
Parmenides not to sway from what ‘is’, that is not to stray back into his old
habits of speculative terrain and in particular to pay attention to when
another is refuting the path of ‘what is’ (known to be true). She informs
Parmenides that within ‘what is’, he will find tokens (or the understanding) such
that: ‘what is’ is all things existing simultaneously within itself; it is uncreated
and indestructible; it is unified and not in opposition to itself; it is immoveable;
it has no origin of itself and is not becoming.
To those intimating
that they will not believe in an all pervading and universal truth unless it is
proven to them – given as truth has no prior cause (we do not create it), it cannot
be reduced to within context; it follows that ‘what is’ is recognised from within
oneself, we literally stand ‘in the presence of’, ergo it is ‘knowing’: we can accept
this or otherwise and for however long that thought of ‘what is’ takes.
There are many who suggest
that the cosmos and all manner of form is growing in complexity and that from
within this complexity emerges consciousness; that is to say that the universe
is awakening to or is becoming conscious of itself. Clearly, this reduces the
cosmos to ‘something’ which ‘came into existence’, necessarily within time. It does
not address the manner through which we perceive the cosmos, in that if we are as
the goddess suggests, fluctuating ‘between two minds’: that which is timeless
and that which is temporal - then it follows that we do not see things as they
are, but rather how we have judged them to be.
The goddess spoke to
Parmenides about time as well as of the quantifiable in general: she said that
if something has already come into being or is going to come into being in the future,
then it ‘is not’ (in truth or just): that ‘what is’ is not born and does not die,
although we can have a thought that it is so – yet within such thought is the
present moment, given as it is immovable. Nor can there be any more or less of ‘what
is’ in any given location (or in anyone’s possession) than of any other (given
as ‘what is’ is all things existing simultaneously within itself).
It appears from what
the goddess has said that that which we promulgate or retract from are simply superficial
impressions and ideas, most of which have no basis in truth.
I find this
especially interesting: the goddess said that these things are but names which
mortals have given, believing them to be true: being and not being, change of
place, alteration of hue (colour). We often use the phrase ‘being this or being
that or even not being’, particularly to discern what it is that we are feeling
or thinking about. Have we created a ‘roadmap’ to complement the complexity or nature
of our thought – what idea of ourselves is our ‘being’ in relationship to?
What about ‘change of
place’ – it’s a given surely, that we can move about and traverse any distance
on the planet, and for that matter away from it? Or is movement that which has been
collectively agreed upon in thought, firmly entrenched and projected upon human
reality, so as to convince ourselves that our body exists as that which is other
than ‘what is’?
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