Secular Intolerance

[Nick_A]

Secularism is now dominant on philosophy sites, schools, and other worldly institutions. People think that if you use the word “theist” for example it isn’t secular. Of course it is. Blind belief is one leveled, Secularism is concerned with our world. It is based on one level of reality so is incapable of recognizing a connection with another. Yet without universalism or the recognition of levels of reality everything remains as it is in Plato’s cave. Science cannot have a skeleton of the universe on which to build on

Secularism cannot allow for serious consideration of the conscious universe as described by Jacob Needleman much less the complimentary flows of forces which sustain our universe called involution and evolution. How many have even read the word involution? Science only recognizes evolution but since involution suggests creation it is a no no in secular society. The spirit killers will do what they can to suppress contemplation of the lawful interaction of involution and evolution. Those who care for the hearts of the young must add to the efforts to keep such ideas alive and open to contemplation regardless of the rants of the Gretas and fooloso4s of the world

I know many of those looking in on this thread are asking themselves what the hell is this involution? I’ll post the beginning of a link which describes this relationship. It will bounce off card carrying secularists but will just seem natural for anyone open to universalism.


http://www.lovewisdom.net/Involution%20 ... ution.html

Involution and Evolution

Theosophy describes a cosmic cycle of the Universe, which is involution and evolution. Now first of all, its meaning of evolution is not exactly consistent with the concept used in natural science, so let us not get these confused. Let us just think about these theosophical ideas in their own intended meaning, so for now let us not make any connections to natural science.

The theosophical model is as follows, which is of course interpretive.
The diagram model is of a downward curve that originates in the Infinite Highest of Divine Being and proceeds downward into the infinitely microscopic material world. This is phase of involution -- a downward descent of the Divine into manifestation… into material/physical existence. So, involution is the process of the Divine coming into manifestation and being involved in manifestation. This is a divine and beautiful process, even a necessary process for there to be any real manifestation. Yet, it might also be considered a lowering of the Divine and as a focus of Mind into materialism. This double-edged truth of involution needs to be kept in our understanding, so that we can see the necessary and positive purposes of involution, but also see the inevitable negative possibilities in all of this.

The other half of this cosmic cycle is the evolutionary curve, which is an upward movement of energy and consciousness. Involution reaches its maximum descent, its maximum materialism, then the energy goes back upward, which is the evolutionary phase. The Divine comes intomanifestation and thus into physical materialism. Then next there is a re-turn back towards the One, the Divine, God. Of course though, the whole existence is Divine, since all of manifestation is essentially an extension or emanation of the Divine.

This re-turn back to God, this evolution, is a process of consciousnessreturning back to its Essence, back to the Oneness of God, from its long journey into more and more material manifestation. In other words, the Spirit (or Consciousness) that originated in God has descended through many levels into a final maximum degree of material manifestation; then it changes direction and heads back upward towards a realized Oneness with God.

Another aspect of this is the One becoming many; then the many returning back to One. Yet even another way of understanding this is that the Divine Unity is budding into creative pluralism. From the One Great Flower comes multiple seeds and thus multiple possibilities; this is the creative involution. Also, there is more and more diversified individuation. Then, once this has fulfilled enough, the process reverses and heads back towards the Unity. This is the process of consciousness returning to its original Oneness. So the original Consciousness descends, or we might say individuates and diversifies. Then in the other phase, these various individuated and diverse consciousness’ start to return back to their original Unity, and in this evolutionary process individuated minds become more unified with others, as everyone gradually approaches Unity once again.

[fooloso4]

Belinda:

"Soul Killing" is my paraphrase, not a quote from Philip Pullman, as far as I know.

I took this as a reference to Nick's "spirit killing".

People have different ways to their truth, and the "esoteric" symbolic stuff is legitimate.

It is not, as I see it, a question of whether it is legitimate but rather of what one claims is a legitimate esoteric reading and what the symbolism being used in a particular case means. One can’t just proclaim, as Nick does, that his interpretation is esoteric as if that settles the matter. It must be shown that the reading is consistent with the text.

Nietzsche has been credited with bringing a form of esoteric writing and hence esoteric reading to the attention of contemporary readers, although for him it has nothing to do with the occult or with the notion of an objective sacred realm that guides the esoteric reading and in which the same symbol means the same thing universally. The sacred, according to Nietzsche, is what we hold to be sacred. There is no transcendent realm to which we can ascend in order for the book to read us and in which the eternal truth is revealed to us. An esoteric reading is reading between the lines to discover what the author has hidden there. As a warning Nietzsche turns the phrase “seek and ye shall find” on its head. It is all too easy to “find” in a text whatever it is one seeks. It is the problem of reading into a text what is not there.

However he has raised such an important point about infiltration into education systems of the ethos of big business …

I agree with this, although I do not find this idea expressed in anything that Nick has said. I think Dewey (who Nick dismisses as a liberal progressive) was right in pointing out that education has adopted a business model.. If I remember correctly, Dewey’s criticism was aimed at primary and secondary education through high school. Since the seventies, however, more and more college education has been administered as a business. I won’t get into particulars but this is the reason why I decided to leave.

I very much recommend Pullman's story preferably the book not the film although the film is enchanting.

I will put him on my to read list.

I said "spontaneity" with some doubts as to its being what I meant. I expect that Pullman would agree with you F4. I agree with you. My excuse is that I could not risk a more lengthy description.

Again, I was responding to Nick’s use of the term as he gets it from Weil.

Nick_A:

Blind belief is one leveled, Secularism is concerned with our world. It is based on one level of reality so is incapable of recognizing a connection with another.

Perhaps your imagined levels of reality is nothing more than blind belief. If, as you admit, you are in the cave then you know nothing of other levels of reality, just stories you have heard and believe.

Yet without universalism or the recognition of levels of reality everything remains as it is in Plato’s cave.

And yet that is where you remain. Talking about what is outside the cave when you have not transcended the cave is nothing more than idle chatter. You are like someone who is told of place they have not been and believes not only that such a place exists but that having been told about it he is now able to talk about it. Of course if such a place does exist it may be very different than the place you have created in your imagination. This is exactly what Plato’s description of the images on the cave wall are. It is remarkable how much you talk about it and how little you understand it.

[Nick_A]

Fooloso4

Perhaps your imagined levels of reality is nothing more than blind belief. If, as you admit, you are in the cave then you know nothing of other levels of reality, just stories you have heard and believe.

You’ve adopted the secularist's path of blind denial. Others seek to learn and practice how to know. You are too busy denying to even think of how to verify.

And yet that is where you remain. Talking about what is outside the cave when you have not transcended the cave is nothing more than idle chatter. You are like someone who is told of place they have not been and believes not only that such a place exists but that having been told about it he is now able to talk about it. Of course if such a place does exist it may be very different than the place you have created in your imagination. This is exactly what Plato’s description of the images on the cave wall are. It is remarkable how much you talk about it and how little you understand it.

Just because I have verified the human condition in the world and within me doesn’t men I have transcended it. You are one of those who believe that as soon as a person looks at a piano, they can play it. I’m sorry to say that it just doesn’t work that way.

You and Greta are closed to reality beyond the limits of our senses but are a large part of human “being.” You have a negative attitude towards those who have verified the human condition and who have experienced levels of reality in one way or another. This mentality is OK for you. I just don’t agree that young healthy kernels of life should have eros killed in them through metaphysical repression by what are called educators.

[fooloso4]

Nick_A:

You are too busy denying to even think of how to verify.

So, how do we verify?

Just because I have verified the human condition in the world and within me doesn’t men I have transcended it.

If there are levels the only way to verify those levels is to have transcended the lower levels and attained a higher level.

You are one of those who believe that as soon as a person looks at a piano, they can play it.

The analogy is weak on many levels. By the way, I have spent many years and countless hours trying to gain a high level of proficiency on the instruments I play. I tend to underestimate my progress, but I know some who wildly overestimate their abilities.

You have a negative attitude towards those who have verified the human condition and who have experienced levels of reality in one way or another.

So again, how have you verified the human condition? What levels of reality have you experienced?

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

Those who care for the hearts of the young must add to the efforts to keep such ideas alive and open to contemplation regardless of the rants of the Gretas and fooloso4s of the world

Greta and Fooloso4 don't rant, they discuss reasonably.

Teachers care for the hearts of the young, and strive manfully against political moves that make teaching less spontaneous and more structured according to what the political masters want. Children are too frequently tested against government criteria. Teachers are inadequately paid and over worked by unnecessary paperwork, and are leaving the profession with the result that classes are too large with harassed teachers and children 's education suffers as a result.
You should look at what teachers actually say, and aim to do, instead of quoting other people's theories all the time. Nick, you have reverted to misuse of 'secular'. 'Secular' doesn't identify who the wrongdoers are. Your own religious preference is not the only worthy one.

Which political party supports child centred education?

I expect there are sociological statistics regarding correlations between religious behaviours and beliefs, and child development and education. So you don't need to rely solely on emotional reactions to Simone Weil and esoterica. As Fooloso4 asks you "How do you verify?"

Actually, I don't see how you could verify, for instance, numerology in The Bible without listing a lot of very tedious quotations, and doing boring sums about what the Biblical 'years' mean. Also I gather that the presence of Biblical symbols is a matter of interpretation for which the evidence from archaeology, architecture, folk customs, and historiography is all circumstantial. It's fascinating but I don't see that you could post it here without reams of description.

[Greta]

Greta wrote:

Then again, a deceased former forum member and staunch atheist, Obvious Leo, used to talk about the fractal levels of reality almost daily. Needleman's commentary on the perceptions of the ancients accord closely with the idea of reality being a series of approximately repeating fractals or, as the ancients sensibly noted, "As above, so below".

You don't need to be a person to fulfill certain roles. There are some common relative dynamics and interaction of entities at every scale - subatomic, molecular, microbial, multicellular, societal, ecosystem, planetary, galactic and so on. The same dynamics, over and over, with the same players - large and dominating, small and controlled, conduits, fringe inhabitants, nulls and so forth. Not wildly unlike Jung's types.

This is not mystical information, just speculated observations about how things seem to work. Yes, many hard-headed science fans dismiss such speculations out of hand. Then again, so do many theists, who see only two levels - them and The Big Kahuna. While I love science, I am also keen on poetic and metaphorical relations between things, but many science people consider this to be egoistic wankery by neophytes. So be it

Still, I agree with hard rationalists at least in that we should proceed here with caution; the confidence of the ancients was largely driven by their not being aware of their knowledge gaps. Importantly, just because something is in a higher sphere does not mean it is more developed. New entities in higher spheres will lack the connectivity of mature entities in smaller spheres. So a newborn human infant is less capable than an adult insect and a new society less wise than a mature individual.

Rather than size, balance appears to be pivotal. The domains of the very large and very small seem to be ever less connected and sentient. The Sun, the Earth, animal scales - all middling scales. Again, this pertains to connectivity. Too small, and the structures are not stable. Too large, and the various parts of a structure cannot communicate with each other - and the very essence of consciousness is interconnectivity.

One can hardly claim that science diminishes humans, unless considered through the narrow lenses of size and energy. Science tells us that we humans appear to be the very most densely complex and sentient things for trillions of kilometres at this stage.

Still, let's stay open. Maybe there's something weird going on with other dimensions? Nobody understands how quantum entanglement works, in which, like theoretical wormholes and space's expansion, information can travel at faster than the speed of light. The information in this instance apparently bypasses our familiar dimensions, connecting directly by concept rather than space and time. This also happens in our dreams and it is basically how the mind works generally, where abstracted connections are made without need for movement through space. This could be an interesting space to watch, despite a lot of new age guesswork being presented as fact (ahem).

I go on at length in the hope you can appreciate that non-theists can be extremely interested all in this stuff - we are not robot people who blindly just follow what experts say. You would say the same thing - that you are not a cookie-cutter theist either. I would rather you reply to the content of this post rather than the "politics".

The bottom line is that we are each small, sentient fluctuations of reality trying to make sense of their surroundings and conveying those impressions to other (hopefully) sentient fluctuations. It's reality gradually making sense of itself like a baby, but piecing together its understanding one individual at a time, with many contrary perceptions cancelling each other out. This competitive shaping is at all levels of reality, from the interaction of matter and antimatter at the start of the universe to the competition of ideas that shapes societies. That's what's happening on the forum - fluctuations in the fabric of reality comparing notes about what this reality malarkey we have been so unceremoniously thrust into is about.

Notice in all these cases there is no indication that a quality of objective reality exists the depths of the human heart is drawn to much like a moth is drawn to the flame. They just prefer to create their own reality and the ideal is for people to argue interpretations.

I draw your attention to the bolded part of my post, although I am wondering why I should bother.

Your constant misrepresentations of Fooloso and me are really poor form. Please try to be civilised.

[Nick_A]

Fooloso4 asked:

So again, how have you verified the human condition? What levels of reality have you experienced?

Belinda wrote:

As Fooloso4 asks you "How do you verify?"

In order to verify a person must to some degree been able to “Know Thyself” – have the experience of oneself. Do either of you know what it means to Know Thyself and what is necessary to do it? If not how could you appreciate what is meant by levels of reality and how we can experience them?

[fooloso4]

Nick_A:

In order to verify a person must to some degree been able to “Know Thyself” – have the experience of oneself. Do either of you know what it means to Know Thyself and what is necessary to do it? If not how could you appreciate what is meant by levels of reality and how we can experience them?

Transparently evasive. We have talked a great deal about what we think know thyself means. The question is how you can verify levels of reality and what levels of objective reality you have experienced, not how we can experience them. The two questions are related because it is one thing to claim that you have experienced a level of reality but quite another to claim that there is such a level if you have not experienced it.

[Nick_A]

Greta

Your constant misrepresentations of Fooloso and me are really poor form. Please try to be civilised.

You can’t BS and old BSer. I know you two like a book. You try and blame others for what you are guilty of. It’s an old Alinsky technique. It has become a habit with you.

I go on at length in the hope you can appreciate that non-theists can be extremely interested all in this stuff - we are not robot people who blindly just follow what experts say. You would say the same thing - that you are not a cookie-cutter theist either. I would rather you reply to the content of this post rather than the "politics".

The bottom line is that we are each small, sentient fluctuations of reality trying to make sense of their surroundings and conveying those impressions to other (hopefully) sentient fluctuations. It's reality gradually making sense of itself like a baby, but piecing together its understanding one individual at a time, with many contrary perceptions cancelling each other out. This competitive shaping is at all levels of reality, from the interaction of matter and antimatter at the start of the universe to the competition of ideas that shapes societies. That's what's happening on the forum - fluctuations in the fabric of reality comparing notes about what this reality malarkey we have been so unceremoniously thrust into is about.

The universe understands itself. We are the ones with the problem that denies its objective meaning and purpose to such a degree that it invented secularism isolated from the universe. Of course secular scientists study mechanics. If it denies a source for universal laws how can science practicing fragmentation help us to understand wholeness? Science will eventually prove that a Source for creation is necessary to explain its advnces. Then the question of how to open to universal meaning and purpose will appear if humanity survives that long.. Consider the question of beauty:

"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" ~ Richard P. Feynman

"Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. ... It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." ~ Simone Weil

The secularists wants to pull beauty down into its level of reality. It rejects a Source for creation The universalist wants to open to what beauty masks. You and fooloso4 won’t understand this but all those who are still open to the idea of a conscious universe and its levels of reality will.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A:

In order to verify a person must to some degree been able to “Know Thyself” – have the experience of oneself. Do either of you know what it means to Know Thyself and what is necessary to do it? If not how could you appreciate what is meant by levels of reality and how we can experience them?

Transparently evasive. We have talked a great deal about what we think know thyself means. The question is how you can verify levels of reality and what levels of objective reality you have experienced, not how we can experience them. The two questions are related because it is one thing to claim that you have experienced a level of reality but quite another to claim that there is such a level if you have not experienced it.

You are just BSing again. You don't know what it means to know oneself and how it is made possible. So anything I tell you will just invite a meaningless argument. Now let me see what Belinda writes. Will she be honest enough to admit that she doesn't know what it means and what would be necessary to know thyself. If you are not taught these things and experience the truth in them, how is anyone expected to know and it is no crime to admit it. This is not part of a secular education.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

I think theology has its place in philosophical discussion. I think they start to blur the line when they also cite theological arguments as something which specifically supports the religion they happened to be raised under, which is a little too convenient. Although some can defend this fact very well, and admittedly most of the notable religious philosophers are still theists and not deists.

To tell you the truth, I've learned a lot more about logical discussion and how to formulate arguments from apologists like William Lane Craig and Alvin Platinga than I have with atheist commentators like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who can be quite stubborn and unreasonable at times.

[Greta]

I go on at length in the hope you can appreciate that non-theists can be extremely interested all in this stuff - we are not robot people who blindly just follow what experts say. You would say the same thing - that you are not a cookie-cutter theist either. I would rather you reply to the content of this post rather than the "politics".

The bottom line is that we are each small, sentient fluctuations of reality trying to make sense of their surroundings and conveying those impressions to other (hopefully) sentient fluctuations. It's reality gradually making sense of itself like a baby, but piecing together its understanding one individual at a time, with many contrary perceptions cancelling each other out. This competitive shaping is at all levels of reality, from the interaction of matter and antimatter at the start of the universe to the competition of ideas that shapes societies. That's what's happening on the forum - fluctuations in the fabric of reality comparing notes about what this reality malarkey we have been so unceremoniously thrust into is about.

The universe understands itself. We are the ones with the problem that denies its objective meaning and purpose to such a degree that it invented secularism isolated from the universe. Of course secular scientists study mechanics. If it denies a source for universal laws how can science practicing fragmentation help us to understand wholeness? Science will eventually prove that a Source for creation is necessary to explain its advnces. Then the question of how to open to universal meaning and purpose will appear if humanity survives that long.. Consider the question of beauty:

"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" ~ Richard P. Feynman

"Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. ... It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." ~ Simone Weil

The secularists wants to pull beauty down into its level of reality. It rejects a Source for creation The universalist wants to open to what beauty masks. You and fooloso4 won’t understand this but all those who are still open to the idea of a conscious universe and its levels of reality will.

I think I have had enough of banging my head against your brick wall.

[fooloso4]

Nick_A:

You are just BSing again. You don't know what it means to know oneself and how it is made possible.

The question of what the inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi means has been debated since ancient times and yet you assume that whatever it is you think it means is the definitive answer and anyone who does not agree is wrong.

So anything I tell you will just invite a meaningless argument.

I have heard what you think it means before and in typical fashion you introduce something foreign to the Greek mind. You talk about everything but how it was understood according to the ancient Greek sources.

Now let me see what Belinda writes. Will she be honest enough to admit that she doesn't know what it means and what would be necessary to know thyself.

Yes, I am quite sure that Belinda will be much more honest than you. Your opinion of what it means is not knowledge of what it means. Your not knowing the difference is indicative of your lack of self-knowledge. You do not know what you do not know.

If you are not taught these things and experience the truth in them, how is anyone expected to know and it is no crime to admit it. This is not part of a secular education.

Here you go again. I have not been indoctrinated into the secret society and have not learned the secret handshake and so I cannot know what cannot be conveyed in words. You are right, it is not part of a secular education or of any education. It is occult mystification. Do you have special hats too?

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

As Fooloso4 asks you "How do you verify?"
In order to verify a person must to some degree been able to “Know Thyself” – have the experience of oneself. Do either of you know what it means to Know Thyself and what is necessary to do it? If not how could you appreciate what is meant by levels of reality and how we can experience them?

Knowing myself means being aware of my own moods, fixed beliefs, temporary beliefs, and also it means doubting my own reasoning faculty. Self awareness means having enough self doubt in order to make objective decisions about my future actions, the most true narrative about mypast, and the most probable narrative to explain whatever it is needs explaining.

Knowing myself means being aware of the ever- present temptation to obey the urges of unthinking emotions even at times when reflection and doubt would make my life safer, and more pleasant. Knowing myself means that if ever I were in a position of power I would control my reactionary emotions so that I could find it easier to understand what was going on with somebody else, or with something that is not me.

Even the theory of levels of reality should be doubted and subjected to the doubt that I might be interjecting my own prejudices and fears into how I think of levels of reality. Nobody is not subject to prejudices and fears. Knowing oneself , one's moods , wants, needs and beliefs , is integral to having insight into one's own private experiences.

For instance when I am dowsing , I get into a special feeling-tone which I have reason to believe facilitates results. This feeling-tone is a kind of acting which I am self aware enough to know that acting is what I am doing. I am aware that I am getting into this private feeling-tone, and my self awareness allows me to tell you about it objectively. You, Nick, when you experience your genuine experience(I don't doubt that you are genuine) of higher levels, you would ask yourself if you were deceiving yourself and why you might be deceiving yourself.

[Nick_A]

Do you wish to know God? First learn to know yourself. Abba
Evagrius, Fourth Century

This axiom is really ancient. Perhaps we underestimate the depth of its meaning and significance in the modern world.

Belinda

Knowing myself means being aware of my own moods, fixed beliefs, temporary beliefs, and also it means doubting my own reasoning faculty. Self awareness means having enough self doubt in order to make objective decisions about my future actions, the most true narrative about mypast, and the most probable narrative to explain whatever it is needs explaining.

Is being aware of oneself the same as knowing oneself? I’m not being critical but just raising a deep question What is the self and what is aware of it? To know oneself is to have the conscious direct experience of oneself as opposed to a casual awareness that we are doing this or that.

I’d like to post a few observations from this thought provoking discussion between Jacob Needleman and Richard Whittaker. The discussion begins with:

https://parabola.org/2016/03/04/the-gre ... needleman/

RICHARD WHITTAKER: I thought that, since you’re a teacher of philosophy, I could ask you to talk a little about the unknown in terms of the Western philosophical tradition.
JACOB NEEDLEMAN: I should start by saying, only half-jokingly, that philosophers don’t do answers. We do questions. We deal with discovering and deepening our sense of something that is unknown. But in the spirit of your question and—as an academic thing, and in a good way—when I hear this phrase “the unknown” I think first of all of Immanuel Kant, probably the greatest modern philosopher. He defined something essential about the modern era in the Western world through an extraordinary book called The Critique of Pure Reason. This is a vast, complex work of genius; it’s like walking into a great cathedral because of the immensity of it and the depth of thought and understanding in it. To put it briefly, he argued with unsurpassed persuasive power that the structure of the mind shapes our reality; that there are categories by which the mind operates and organizes the data that comes to us through our senses. It organizes all that data automatically beneath the level of consciousness so that by the time that we actually have a perception of that flower or that object, it has already been organized by the categories through which the mind works. All our experience is shaped by passing through these modifying functions. So we can never really know things as they are independent of our perception of them. He gave two roughly similar names to this unknown. One is “things-in-themselves” and the other word is the noumenon (meaning “that which can be apprehended only by a higher power of direct knowing, which in fact we do not have”). We’re forever barred forever from knowing reality as it is in itself.. Whatever certainty about the world that we seem to have—such as the law of causality—is simply a certainty that the mind irresistibly imposes on our perception. He demonstrated this with such force and such genius, it astonished the whole intellectual world. For many people it was –and still is– a shattering realization to think that humanity is never going to know reality as it is. Some people fell into despair.

Can we agree that to “know thyself” isn’t about changing anything to create what we assume to be better reactions but knowing the self is experiencing the machine that interprets our lives. There is the consciousness of I and there is the mechanics of myself. The experience of myself is the process of a conscious level of reality witnessing the reactions of a lower level.

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." - Albert Einstein

Does any of this resonate with you so far?