Dialogue ~ 45

By way of the goddess, Parmenides was brought to see the nature of the highest good as ‘it is’, it being just and in truth (containing all things simultaneously within itself).

Time has been conceived of by humans as a medium through which they have ‘free will’ to create the world in a reflection of their own image (of perfection).

Remember that Spinoza wrote (concerning the nature of the highest good) “… we must bear in mind that … the same thing may be called both good and bad according to the relations in view, in the same way as it may be called perfect or imperfect. Nothing regarded in its own nature can be called perfect or imperfect; especially when we are aware that all things which come to pass, come to pass according to the eternal order and fixed laws of nature.

However, human weakness cannot attain to this order in its own thoughts, but meanwhile man conceives a human character much more stable than his own … he is led to seek for means which will bring him to this pitch of perfection, and calls everything which will serve as such means a true good.”

Is it true that ‘a weakness of humanity is that it cannot attain to eternal order and fixed laws of nature’ within its own thoughts’? Remember that the goddess had said to Parmenides that mortals ‘wander in two minds’; she said that this occurs when mortals do not discern between ‘what is and can exist’ (given as it is true and just) and ‘what is not’.

Is the goddess referring to the faculty of imagination, in that one forms new ideas, images and concepts of things which are not immediately present to the senses? It is one thing to hold an image of what one would like to bring into the world to be able to experience (experience being to know); it is quite another to behave as if one is in possession of knowing these things when one is not (by venturing opinions for example).

Do we misinterpret the consequence of our thoughts (which is the justice of ‘the orderly fates’) as chaos and wrestle with ‘what is’ to bring what appears into submission? Do we believe that we are ‘recreating’ a pathway or entry into ‘what is’ (a state of grace) through our own efforts, most notably defining for ourselves what perfection is?

Previously I wrote, “… 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 (the gnostic Sophia/wisdom was said to have ‘leaned over’ to look into the abyss of what is unknowable), creating trails within the temporal.”

If the intellect is a guardian of one’s truth, in that as it is anchored within the reality of ‘what is’, it can only recognise truths in relation to ‘what is’. If we formulate opinions about ideas and think and live in such a way as to ‘make these opinions our truth’, we have compromised ourselves and our faculty of knowing is ‘split in two’ as it were - it could even be said that we have ‘fallen from grace’ which is only to say that we are entertaining a thought form about ourselves and of life which is not grounded in reality.

How often do we say that we ‘know things’? Can we be certain that we do know what it is that we think we know, particularly if we have neglected to discern between our own experience of something and of other people’s interpretations and say-so?

If we have not validated information that we are given through our own experience, it follows that what we assume is knowledge (and any subsequent means of obtaining it) moves out of orbit of one’s intellect. Certainly, there are highly intelligent people in the world but that are questionable with regards to their wisdom – is it belief of ‘an untruth’ (with subsequent ‘untruths’) at cause? An untruth cannot become truth; it is crucial to be able to discern between truth and untruth as only when one is grounded in the reality of ‘what is’ can one see things (oneself) clearly and have wisdom.

Consider that the myth of Prometheus is representative of ‘first thought or an idea’ in real time as it is emerging from ‘what is’ (is knowable, in truth and just). As these ideas which are grounded in one’s knowing emerge, they are connected together as if forming an ‘adamantine’ chain of one’s truth.

If one’s truth is abandoned, that is to say, if one fails to discern between ideas of ‘what is’ and opinions (including of consequences of one’s actions), then one has bound Prometheus in chains. Epimetheus (hindsight) has become the guide of one’s way in the darkness of a material world. Effectively it is to enter into the toil of coming to know ‘what is’ (one’s truth) through an ‘extended journey’ - a circuitous route (of time).

I am considering what Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” Matthew 10:34

A common interpretation of what Jesus meant is that he intended to divide between belief and non-belief (as in relation to one’s faith), but I am considering whether what he was referring to instead was the discerning between what can be known (what is) and what is unknowable (and of opinion) – effectively, of what is generally understood as Gnosis.

Consider that as a person loses touch with the truth of what is, so too will an understanding of why life is as it is (knowledge brings understanding). A person might believe that they understand the world but this perception is only in accordance with how clear is their vision.

It is as a person engages with the world as an autonomous being that they will encounter events which are representative of that which they cannot see (remember that Epimetheus is akin to their walking through the world in reverse or with blindfold). Entering into conflict with such events (which in the classical world might have been interpreted as chaotic) is as if they are battling with what are viewed as inconvenient or undesirable aspects of life (of themselves). Conflict contains within itself an opportunity of integration (given as all things exist simultaneously within ‘what is’).

There is much that has been written with regard to hubris and the ‘fall of humanity’ from the grace of ‘what is’. The toil of redemption has been denoted as virtuous, in that it identifies the flaws of humanity. This idea is especially pertinent in relation to the displacing of guilt of one’s actions upon a sense of ‘other’.

We are informed that knowledge which has been given to us is inviolable – that there are certain truths which are sacrosanct; we have been/are persecuted for questioning such, but whose or for what purpose does that fulfil?

If faith is an experience of hope which is bound up in an imaginary idea of ‘the future’ and it does not engage with moving into one’s truth in the present, the future cannot arise and the ‘serpent will continue biting its own tail’.