Egads! Twas G-d again!
The Dalai Lama descended on South Florida with the historic 2004 hurricane season. His appearance had a calming effect on the terrified people if not on the storms themselves. I had relocated to Ft. Lauderdale two days prior to the arrival of Hurricane Frances, only to be told that my reservations had been cancelled because of Frances. I wound up huddling in the unlit corner of a tourist hovel in a dangerous neighborhood with a gallon of water and six donuts as Frances blew over.
An old Internet friend from Sunny Isles got me out of there, and tried to help me find a better temporary residence in Ft. Lauderdale, from whence I could find an apartment. But Hurricane Hugo was on the way. Ft. Lauderdale motels and hotels were gouging people right and left. After several broken promises from resident managers and after meeting several apartment rental sharks, I was disenchanted with Ft. Lauderdale. My friend took me to Miami and dropped me off at an old Capone hideout on South Beach, the Clay Hotel on Washington Avenue. My room was decrepit and tiny, but the maid service was good, beautiful people were behind the desk, it was cheap: I fell in love with the place.
First impressions, especially when made in new and terrifying circumstances, can be lasting impressions. Hurricane Hugo was on his way, hence residents new and old faced the prospect of evacuation, being crushed to death, drowning, or, if everything went well, nothing of the sort. As it were, I stuck around after the evacuation order was given - Hugo went elsewhere so Nothing happened to South Beach. As Hugo approached Florida, I had resorted to my usual diversion from terror - abstract thinking is a powerful narcotic. I encountered several amusing articles about the Dalai Lama's visit. One in particular intrigued me, a fascinating piece written by one Nathan Katz, distinguished professor of religious studies at Florida International University, about his relationship with the Dalai Lama. The article was entitled, 'Dalai Lama's lesson on "returning" to G-d'. I clipped it and pasted it into my notebook for future reference, perhaps to serve as a little momento of my own arrival in South Florida, a little verbal picture which I might meditate on from time to time.
Or perhaps this fool that I am would at some future time criticize and shred Professor Katz's article, with what some critics have called my "frightening intelligence", then throw it away. In that event, thank Gum, for the professor had hyphenated the vernacular term he used to indicate the proper name for [the Ineffable Name], placing the hyphen between 'G' and 'd', thus: G-d. Golly, I said to myself, if I eventually tire of Nathan's article, I can rip it from my notebook and toss it without fear of erasing or otherwise offending [the ineffable Name]. But, Holy [expletive deleted]! what am I talking about! I'm not even Jewish, let alone Orthodox Jewish, so why should I care what the likes of Rabbi Jehiel Michael Epstein said, that even writing the vernacular names of [the Ineffable Name], for instance the word 'Gud' stands for, is an "exceedingly grave offense." Even if I were Jewish, why be that superstitious about possibly taking Cock's name in vain? The Canaanite 'El the Bull' would do nicely, and there should be nothing wrong with writing down the plural 'Elohim', or 'Adonai', 'Shaddai', and 'Zeva'ot.'
As for English speakers, a devotee might say "the Lord" without being struck down by lightning. Or, and may Zeus not forbid it, 'God.' Of course, if you are a Catholic, you should know that 'God' is not a substitute but is rather the proper personal name of God, meaning God is God. Of course the term 'God' is a pagan and pre-Christian word rooted in terms meaning "what is invoked", the object of sacrifice, perhaps "molten image." Oh, oh, maybe a molten image of the Bull?
Gummy! enough of this Gog business! Let's just say God, if we like. We do not doubt the power of the original word or name, the Name. We would not be human without it, and perhaps nothing at all would be. I wonder if Professor Katz, who is fond of Tibet's Dalai Lama, is familiar with H.P. Blavatsky, who resided in Tibet and studied "Lamaism", particularly the Tantric aspects, for seven years in the middle of the nineteenth century? HPB believed the world religions were linked via the Secret Masters. She claimed that theTetragrammaton, YHWH or Yahweh, the Jew's personal name for the Supreme Being, is the sign of the Heavenly Man or Microsopos, the first universal manifestation or logos, Adam Kadmon being the second logos and Man being the third. The Microsopos or Be-ing is, in reverse, the Macroposopus or non-Being. To wit: Being or Nothing. Somehow she arrived at the perfect number Ten for YHWH, who is "I am I (I=I)", or Being, both male and female in the digits, 1 and 0, or 10. Incidentally, she gives the number Ten for the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, and claims that the Decalogue spells the name of the Messiah.
By Golly, what is the meaning of all this? my relocation or dislocation to South Florida into the conjunction of Hurricanes Frances and Hugo, the Dalai Lama, Nathan Katz, the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement, and the Secret Name? How should I know? Maybe this is how.
Anyway, try as I might, I could find nothing wrong with Professor Katz's article. Why not tear it up and get rid of it? What is the point of reflecting on it? Could it be the model for sculpting some sort of concrete universal or absurd one-in-many of my own? an idol, perhaps, of my place in existence? Perchance it might be a self-portrait in which I would finally, recognizing myself, know who I am. Egads! What am I doing here? I generally avoid religious literature except during terrifying times. When I pick up a book and find the word 'God' on the pages, I lay it down. I have been "accused" of being a Buddhist, a Jew, a Christian, and an atheist, but I am not a man of faith other than having a native faith in life, a will to live, perhaps forever given the right circumstances, paradise. If I were a man of faith, I think I would rather be a happy monk than a priest or layman, providing that I had a cell, a cot, cake and milk, an Internet connection, and my own Order.
All right, so I exist. So what? to what end? The Dalai Lama, when asked for the purpose of existence, said, "I don't know." Good answer. When asked what he had to say in South Florida, he said, "Nothing." Hmmm. His duty, he said, was to show up and smile. All right. Then he talked his head off. What in the world is the meaning of all this? Indeed, what is my point here? The article Professor Katz wrote seemed to have a point - that Be-ing should be prior to Do-ing. We might think and have some peace of mind before we act if our practice is to have a theoretical basis, if our behavior is to have moral principles running throughout.
On the other hand, we recall Sartre's point, that existence comes before being, and we say so because we are sick and tired of the metaphysical definitions of Being that would restrict and misunderstand our existence. We might prefer Nothing, and perhaps even have faith in Nothing, which is about as nondenominational a faith as one can get. When we get to the bottom of all the metaphysics, whose legitimate end is to arrive at the highest universal, Being, we find that Being stripped of all its predicates is as good as Nothing. Professor Katz is sincere - he thinks there is a point to the verbal picture he painted for the newspaper; but when I reflect on his point, I think his point is absolutely blunt or pointless - and that might be a good thing.
Again what is my point here? I want something more than Nothing but I cannot say what that is, if anything at all. I feel there is some sort of secret behind Nathan's verbal painting, perhaps alluded to by the sacred name, the object of which is the biggest secret of all, despite the fact that libraries are filled with descriptions and explanations.
The Secret Name in olden times, for instance in ancient Egypt, was known by a few high priests who wore the Stone Age garb of Hercules - later adopted by the Cynics and elaborated by Catholics. The high priests were said to have "the power of the name." They were in charge of the holy ark, the divine seat and repository of the holiest things, particularly the holy seed, the Secret Name. The goddess Isis, who invented writing and who had the power of the Ineffable Name, was the personification of that seat; her sign, in the form of a chair, was said to be the throne of the pharaoh-god, who would come and go as the River, while she, the Black Land, remained forever. The Secret Name was pronounced in the holiest place, where the ark or boat of life was housed, just as the Jewish high priest pronounces "Jehovah" in the holy place once a year.
Naming is indeed an awful power. It is a defining, limiting power, and if there be a supreme power or absolute power, no name would suit that Power. If that Power be personal, that Person might not tolerate attempts to name "Him". Indeed, using the sacred power of naming to name that sacred person might be the ultimate blasphemy; therefore the priest who does so in the Holy of Holies should have a rope tied to his ankle so someone can pull his body out just in case he is the subject of God's wrath.
What is the Ineffable Name? The Egyptian practices were probably derived from primitive African religion. If we are to return to our origin for the Secret Name, we had better conduct our search in Africa, in parts south of Egypt. Strange as this might seem, to this very day an African tribe can be found whose shamans keep a sacred stool in the private place of their lodge. It is covered up from time to time and carried about in procession. Everybody wants to know what the Big Secret is. Only once was that question answered. We do not know if the answer was truthful, for it might have been given to keep the Big Secret. The head man said:
"There is no secret."
Nathan's Religious Impropriety
Professor Katz confessed that he had spent several days with the Dalai Lama during the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Those ten days, he wrote, "are a time for Jews to go inward, to realign themselves with G-d and to make amends with their family and neighbors. This process of 'returning' to G-d is known as teshuva, repentance. It might seem inappropriate that I spend several of those 10 days with the Dalai Lama, but no one has ever taught me more about 'returning' than he - returning to the religion of my birth, Judaism, a religion that I have come to understand as perfectly attuned to my soul." (sic) Furthermore, he said, "A new lesson has been impressed on me: that what we are may be even more important than what we do.
It certainly might seem inappropriate that a Jew would spend Jewish holy days with a Buddhist lama or guru whose ultimate spiritual authority is based on the superstition that he is the current reincarnation of Avalokitesara (the "lord who looks in every direction"), the boddhisattva ("buddha-to-be") of infinite compassion and mercy. After all, the Dalai Lama is literally worshiped by credulous people as if he were a perfect person or god, a sort of veneration that is anathema to Judaism, which, after all, rejected the perfectly compassionate Son of God, Jesus the Christ. Of course the Buddhist pantheon of divine beings presided over by Avalokitesara are recognized by sophisticated priests not as realities but as symbolic representations of the psychic life of the religious community. Nevertheless, Tibetan Buddhism with its Tantric accretions certainly smacks of pantheism. Jews are monotheists, are they not? Do they not profess faith in the one and only G-d?
If we set aside Mahayana Buddhism and return to the fundamentals of Hinayana Buddhism, now represented by the remaining school of its "eighteen schools", which is the Theravada or Way of the Elders, we discover that the primitive Buddhists were essentially atheists, and that the atheist schools, as opposed to the "deities-schools", were still thriving as late as the seventh century of our Common Era. Yuan Chwang took a survey during his travels in India, and estimated that 200,000 bhikkhus (monks) were still adhering to the primitive ethical doctrine associated with Gautama Buddha.
Although the Hinayama schools had their differences - some even argued for survival of the "person" if not the atman or soul, and for the existence of gods - their prevailing doctrine was similar to that of the atheistic Sankyha system.They rejected the idea that a person or being exists who created the world and all things and who alone is worthy of worship. Theism was in fact identified by sophisticated Buddhist teachers as one of the "six damnable heresies." They argued that the visible universe originates in spacetime pursuant to immutable natural laws, not divine providence. The material principle that develops into the innumerable parts of the universe is not the good product of an original personal creator, but is rather the product of an original evil spawning continuous change by virtue of said natural laws. Others did not bother with metaphysical speculation at all, and occupied themselves with the ethical, logical, psychological aspects and implications of Buddha's teachings.
Buddha was not a prophet or a priest - he was a teacher. Buddha did not found a religion. He wanted to discover the universal cause of suffering and a way to eliminate it. He discovered the cause in desire, and found relief in leading a righteous life; not the self-righteous life of a bigot, but a life in accord with the 'natural law' of human beings, meaning a rational, reasonable, and humane life. He tested his ideas on a few pilgrims. What he said made common sense, hence he gained quite a following, one that eventually became a vast civilization of its own.
The early Buddhists had very few things to say about the personal life of Gautama: they emphased his findings and teachings instead, particularly the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Five Precepts. Eventually his persona was exaggerated, replicated and idolized. The primitive Hindu gods - Buddha did not deny their existence, yet he considered them no better off than the miserable the human beings who made sacrifices to them - returned with a vengeance. Barbarian hordes descended on India with their superstitions and animistic tendencies, thereby "rejuvenating" the Buddhist culture. Priests and professors of theology and philosophy proliferated with the multiplication of monks. Eventually the bureaucracy became ossified; creative thinkers were replaced by ruling leaders; an enormous monastic leech formed on the back of the secular populations, in which the religious found their living. In theocratic Tibet, for example, a Chinese survey taken in 1737 reported one monk for every lay person - later statisticians gave a ratio of one in four. Modern scholars concluded that the Tibetan nation, once the most vigorous nation in Eastern Asia, a nation that had overrun and conquered China several times, had declined in power and numbers because of the unproductive Buddhist monastic orders and practices.
Given the atheistic and pantheistic implications of the Buddhist civilization, we might conclude that Judaism and Buddhism are as incompatible as fire and water, and therefore we could chide Nathan Katz for hanging out with Buddhists on the Jewish days of repentance. We might agree that Buddhism is a "religion", and admit that Buddhisms and other religions of the world are the right subject of study for a Jewish professor of religious studies, but not on the ten days of repentance between the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement!
After all, what is Nathan Katz "returning" to for the sake of atonement or at-one-ment? The Supreme Being? or Nothing? Rabbis speak of "mending" the social fabric and then returning to [the Ineffable Name] as one community. But instead of patching up our differences, perhaps we should just toss them into hell if not the abyss. Once our relative differences are set aside, are we not one? Even one with the One? Therefore Nothing, or Being. The more attractive term is Being, for it seems to stand for something positive; but once we are one we have no cause to quibble over such nonsense as Being and Nothing, or Neither, or both, or whatever.
The reductions to absurdity give us cause to note the iconoclasm of the pure ones at the esoteric core of several religions. The iconoclast smashes everything with his hammer, and what is left is good. He might have been attracted to the religion by the jewel-laden trees of gold in the land of milk and honey and the like of some heaven or the other, but in the end he could suffer them no longer, wherefore he took his hammer to them as well, and was left with X.
In the final analysis, we have no way of knowing for sure whether or not the religious person before us really believes in "god", whatever that term might mean if anything. That is "between him and his god." Perhaps it does not really matter. We recall Miguel Unamuno's story about the blessed Saint Emmanuel, who confessed that he was an atheist despite all the good that he had done the village. As for Nathan Katz and his attendance on the Dalai Lama during important Jewish days, I see the apparent impropriety of his conduct and urge him to repent and to say om mane padmi hum a thousand times.
Just be Jews
Professor Katz explains how he became impressed with the "new lesson" he had learned: "that what we are may be even more important than what we do." You see, he was a delegate to the "historic" 1990 Tibetan-Jewish dialogue hosted by the Dalai Lama: the dialogue was published as a book and a movie - The Jew in the Lotus.
The "Jew" in the phrase is a pun on the Jewel-Lotus symbol soundly embedded in the mantra, om mani padme hum, which is central to the Dalai Lama's Yellow Hat or Ge-lug-pa (virtuous) order of Mahayana's (Buddhism's Great Vehicle) Vajrayana (vajra=diamond-thunderbolt) tradition. Hinduism generally associates the Lotus with the origin of life, whereas the Diamond-Thunderbolt is identified with the tremendous magical power of a deity - Buddhists may refer to it as the power of enlightenment.
Professor Katz said he engaged in a "public Tibetan-Jewish dialogue" with his good friend, Geshe-la, after the movie was released. He carefully noted that Geshe-la is "the pinnacle of Tibetan monastic education," and has, to boot, a Ph.D. in psychology from Emory University.
Such impressive credentials, which in this case suggest a synthesis of religion with a course of study that aspires to be a genuine modern science, would no doubt add authoritative weight to the teacher's lessons from the ivory tower at the summit of monasticism. Although he brought them up, the professor assured me separately that people who know him know that he does not stand on such formalities and is not unduly influenced by authoritative credentials. Perchance it is I who have an undue regard for formal credentials since I have singled his statement out for analysis.
However that may be, why should Professor Katz not appreciate, identify with and be attached to the professional qualifications possessed by himself and his colleagues, friends, and religious masters? He might be inclined to publicly refer to their qualifications simply to honor them, and not to puff himself up by association with their superior social status. Good students in particular should in fact name the teachers of their important "new lessons." I have no doubt that Nathan Katz is a down-to-earth human being, and I look forward to meeting him in 'real' timespace. Still, his friend and teacher's credentials are well worth mentioning, since relative social status may serve to protect the ignorant members of the public from charlatans.
A few precautionary words are in order here: Someone once asked me for my credentials so that he would know whether or not a certain opinion of mine had any merit. I responded that I am a nobody in terms of credentials of any sort whatsoever, therefore my opinions have no official social credence whatsoever, therefore each person must examine them and be their own judge as to their merits or demerits. He responded that since I had used the personal pronoun "I" in my article, my views must not be very scientific or objective, so he would forget them and me. That was fine by me. Now it certainly is not my purpose to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I do not practice religion or psychology nor am I a certified spiritual master or psychologist. My opinions are not to be construed as spiritual or psychological advice. Please consult your bona fide spiritual master or psychologist on all your spiritual and psychological needs.
That being said, I believe that we should, with all due respect for reverend professors and doctors of psychology and philosophy and the like, conduct our inquiries into such subjects as Being Somebody while Doing Nothing, with an open mind, perhaps with Gautama Buddha's advice in mind (pardon the contradiction), that we should believe nothing merely because we have heard or imagined it, or because it is traditional. Most importantly in this context, Buddha advised us not to believe what our teacher tells us simply because we respect the teacher. Rather, we should examine and analyze the information we receive, then do our best to find whatever therein is conducive to the good of all people, then adhere to that alone. We certainly respect the importance of professional credentials, yet we respect even more the fact many of our best teachers were self-taught - some of them were illiterate.
After all, Buddha did not present himself as Siddhartha Gautama, Ph.D. Buddha attended a few schools, but he found them completely lacking, so he went off on his own in search of truths that would get to the bottom of life and obviate the misery caused by the ignorance plaguing his troubled world with its diverse competing political-economic and religious factions. He presented what he believed to be the plain and simple truth about life on this earth, and left it up to his auditors to decide for themselves on the merits of his examinations, analyses and conclusions. You have heard my propositions, he said, so are there any objections? No?
But to continue with the professor's article: Nathan Katz and Geshe-la discussed the Tibetan people's struggle to maintain their culture in exile, having abandoned their homeland 40 years ago. Professor Katz asked Geshe-la what Jews could do to help Tibetans. "Nothing.... Just be Jews. You cannot imagine how much encouragement we take from you, just for being who you are. The fact that you are still here, the fact that you still worship in your ways.... " Professor Katz was duly impressed - perhaps flattered would be the right word - with the fact that, "Just like that, Geshe-la revealed our own wisdom to us." That is, the wisdom of being Jewish exiles whose rabbis, incidentally, teach two mitzvots or commandments: humans have a "vertical connection" to G-d", which requires the practice of religious rituals, and a "horizontal connection among people", the "thou-shalts" and "shalt-nots" of ethical social relationships. Social relationships of course get torn and shabby and must be mended from time to time. Once the rifts are mended, once amends are made with family and neighbors, the community as a whole can return to "G-d", a return which is known to Jews as teshuva or repentance.
Although the great return is periodically and ceremoniously celebrated by Jews, Professor Katz observes that "Genuine spirituality such as Geshe-la's knows that we can never effect our ceaseless task of mending if we look only to externals, that mending is much deeper than social policy." (emphasis added) That is, repentance and reconciliation is an ongoing process, one that apparently depends on one's state of being. Wherefore our teacher concludes his article with a quote from Lau Tzu:
"The way to do is to be."
The Great Flight to Nothing
Since Professor Katz quoted Lau Tzu, we recall that Lau Tzu once said that executives can get everything done by doing nothing. Furthermore, the following excerpts from Tao Te Ching, as translated by Ursula K. Le Guin and published in Boston by Shambala in 1997, might be of great interest to administrators, teachers and students:
The top administrators, to stay lean and to get a lot for nothing, should not do much studying themselves:
Studying and learning daily you grow larger. Following the Way daily you shrink. You get smaller and smaller. You arrive at not doing. You do nothing and nothing's not done.
To run things, don't fuss with them. Nobody who fusses is fit to run things.
....
Once upon a time those who ruled according to the Way didn't use it to make people knowing but to keep them unknowing.
People get hard to manage when they know too much. Whoever rules by intellect Is a curse upon the land. Whoever rules by ignorance is a blessing on it. To understand these things is to have a pattern and a model, is mysterious power.
Mysterious power goes deep. It reaches far. It follows things back, clear back to the great oneness.
It has been with Gautama Buddha's personal rejection of the schools of his day that we have been somewhat wary of any professor's reference to credentials; for the status implied by rising degrees of education may not always serve to protect the innocent from charlatans, but might instead serve to mask the fundamental truth with misleading prevarications, or to simply lend authoritative credence to idle talk amounting to a lot of hocus-pocus about Nothing.
Not that there is anything wrong with the absolute Nil, or Nothing. As self-conscious living existents, we are all exiled from Nothing, the nothingness of which is immediately obscured by the womb, an obscure paradise to which we, once our feeling of oceanic bliss and omnipotence is confronted by the world, would somehow return. We find ourselves restricted, our omnipotence is challenged, we protest, we hate, we are chastised, we are fearful, we love. Alas, all too often our love is the hate-based love: We love our group because we are afraid of strangers. We love ourselves because we hate the world, which is our origin. We love Christians because we hate Jews, which is the origin of our origin. And so on. The troubles of this world seem to stem from fighting over something or the other, not always for the thing itself but for the sake of an identity that is inherently insecure.
We might say, "They are fighting over nothing," meaning something trivial to us. But it is meaningful to them, for their difference defines them; the struggle itself constitutes yet another occasion for the expression of the internal animosity stemming from the impedance to the will to overpower and possess itself and everything else to boot; and, ultimately and paradoxically, to be One in Nothing, with nothing remaining to be done.
I have suggested that Professor Katz was apparently flattered by his fellow exile, not for just being-in-itself, but for being something; to wit: Jewish. Which is to say by way of connotation, a Jewish exile.
Being Jewish is a perfect example of what a diaspora can do over a couple of thousand years when the integrity of the native nation is somehow maintained and not assimilated by gentiles - orthodox Jews are hard pressed in the United States to save their people from that fate. Indeed, the Jews, often hated by everyone around them including those frustrated Jews who are fundamentalist Christians, changed the world, and much for the better; so much for the better that many people wish they had not recovered Zion in Palestine, that they had kept their temple spiritually distributed all over the world; or, had rebuilt the main temple in South Florida, where there would be less chance for people with rocks in their head to be fighting over the rubble - their attachments, their identifications in differences, etc. They have taken on the appearance of their worst enemy, and the frustrated fundamentalists in the White House now have their Palestine as well.
Tibetan exiles have little material to show for their short period of exile. We have seen a few of them demonstrating in the streets, when Chinese officials visit. We do not know where their ghettos are.
Of course the Tibetan spiritual leaders have made prodigious contributions to Western secular culture since their brutalization by the Chinese communist atheists and subsequent exile. Just what the effect has been is immeasurable. We do not know how many mates and states have not been mutually abused because of the state of peace they enjoy due to the Dalai Lama's presence in person and in literature - he is not the only Tibetan spiritual leader.
Let those of us who are alienated consider well what being an exile means. Being an exile is not a trivial matter, for being exiled is, first of all, the essence of self-conscious individuality - we are all exiles.
Being a Jewish or Tibetan or Cuban exile, which divides exiles and complicates things with the desire for a piece of real estate, is of course no trivial matter. Yet, if we understand Buddha's concern with the attachments that cause so much suffering in this world, we have occasion to doubt whether the affirmation of being Jewish or Tibetan, or a doctor or a professor, or anything else for that matter, will serve the purpose of relieving the suffering of humanity, namely our suffering, although it might make us feel good from time to time, for those identifications are, after all, escapes from the universal fate of us all, which is our return to Nothing, a Void most of us, notwithstanding our meditation on Nothing, do not care to dwell on for very, at least not on a daily basis. Yet that is what individuals must return to, to timeless Eternity at the beginning and end of the cycle of Nothing-Something-Nothing - if we had our druthers, we might prefer Something-Nothing-Something.
Now we recall that Professor Katz spoke of the return of the community of Jewish soul to 'G-d', and he claimed that "a new lesson" had been "impressed" on him by the Dalai Lama, "that what we are may be even more important that what we do."
Fundamental Buddhism denies the existence of the soul and the social projection of souls comprising a universal personal deity. We might presume from Buddhism's teachings that the "self" is a conglomeration of identifications attached to an instinct to persevere forever without impedance. The individuate, or not-divided aspect of a self, which compromises with other individuals to form a reflective alternate, introjected persona (the social aspect masking the individual will), would be absolutely free if it could, would persevere forever, would brook no resistance whatsoever, would make no compromises, would be All or Nothing, and would hypothetically get everything done by doing nothing. One might say that such an individual, as a Uni-Versal category of I-One, would be the Almighty Bum who gets everything wanted for and from Nothing.
Yet that undivided in-dividual or I-god may not exist, might already be nothing but a romantic illusion, a figment of the I-magination that motivates Professor Katz to fly about the world on the tail of the tiger, clutching at the pretty straws of various faiths - a reading of the I Ching is in order here.
Married folks complain that they have lost their identity, so they get a divorce. But there is no identity without relationship, so why not make the most of our identifications as we fly from one love to love for the sake of Love? And whom do we really love? What point is the principle of love's line? Do we not really love the fictitious, mysterious self? We may know nothing of that self except that others love it too, hence the Vanity of vanities is projected, the Person who is loved so much by so many people that the suffer from a lack of love and war on one another for the sake of that seemingly higher cause. Can we love everyone? Is it true that she who loves everybody loves nobody? Well, I am nobody.
In any event, I hope Professor Katz enjoys his romantic flight from so-called Reality as much as I enjoy mine. What we have during that flight might be a passing illusion, but it also might be everything we've got at the moment, so we might as well enjoy it the best we can.
The professor thought he had made a good point with his article, and he later wondered what the point of this present work is, as if everything must come to a point. But I am not making points, I am lifting them. My first point is the nondimensional principle of my line. When an arbitrary point of that line is lifted, the first dimension is realized in a triangular plane. And when an arbitrary point of that plane is lifted, we have the first solid, a diamond with four faces, the Jewel in the Lotus. Yes, indeed!
Comments
Post a Comment