The Journey by Peter Kreeft is an interesting fictional account through allegorical form of an individual, the author, who seeks spiritual truth.
With a dear philosophical companion, Socrates, who is a confidant and guide by his side, the author creates a journey in which quite a few philosophies are encountered, and each are addressed as needed in order to get towards the next step in the author’s personal journey.
Within the allegory written, the author meets thirteen different historical characters who expound their version of truth. These are: Socrates, Epicurus, Protagoras, Diogenes, Gorgias, Democritus, Thrasymachus, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Aristotle, Moses, Joshua and C.S. Lewis. Each philosophy is explored as needed, providing valuable insights about what those philosophies really delineate.
The first half to two thirds of the book covered general philosophical concepts, while the latter offered deeper ruminations into Kreefts unabashed religious point of view through the allegory.
In essence, the book is about choosing a philosophical life in every way shape and form. That’s what appeals to me most about the book. Additionally, the concept of a life as a journey, such as what took place in Dante’s Inferno, was also rather thought-provoking.
As Kreeft notes, in life, you either have a good personal philosophy, or a bad one. This book helps the reader consider at length what type of philosophy one will choose, regardless of what point of view you come from.
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___________________________________________________________ About The Author:
Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, inquirer, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.
His other blog, BreakawayConsciousnessBlog.wordpress.com features mainly his personal work, while TheBreakaway.wordpress.com serves as a media portal which mirrors vital information nigh always ignored by mainstream press, but still highly crucial to our individual understanding of various facets of the world.
Socrates Meets Kant – The Father Of Philosophy meets His Most Famous Influential Modern Child by Peter Kreeft Ph.D. is a fictional foray into philosophical conversation taking place as Kant waits in ‘purgatory’.
In his usual logical and deft way, Kreeft does a sensible job of employing philosophy and seeking truth through the eyes of Socrates. Via the Socratic lens that employs cross-examination, Kreeft goes on to dissect the vital components of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. Considering Kant’s philosophy is concerned about the nature of knowing of things as well as ethics, this book is a great introductory synopsis of the core topics Kant spent his lifetime studying.
Given Kant’s prowess as one of the ‘most influential’ philosophers of history, Kreeft’s choice of employing a fictional Socrates – especially given that he’s the grandfather of cross examination – to critique Kant’s philosophy was merely logical. It’s interesting to fictionally see how Kant would have ‘reacted’ to Socrates’ notable questions, particularly those that touch upon Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Critique of Pure Reason.
Both characters – Socrates & Kant – are brought to life rather well through a very intriguing, and yet not overly complex dialogue. Kreeft even employs some dry humor to add a bit of flavor to these philosophic inquiries. That said, the book mainly revolves around Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” as it critiques and analyzes all crucial points therein.
In its totality, this volume seems rather fit for anyone who is seeking an introductory volume to Kant’s work in general, while still offering enough substance for more astute readers of Kant’s philosophical outlook as a whole.
___________________________________________________________
If you find value in this information, please share it. This article is free and open source. All individuals have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Zy Marquiez and TheBreakaway.wordpress.com.
___________________________________________________________ About The Author:
Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, inquirer, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.
His other blog, BreakawayConsciousnessBlog.wordpress.com features mainly his personal work, while TheBreakaway.wordpress.com serves as a media portal which mirrors vital information nigh always ignored by mainstream press, but still highly crucial to our individual understanding of various facets of the world.
Medical Warning: this article may require THINKING. Ask your doctor if thinking is right for you.
When a philosopher has no more room to move and finds his back up against a cold wall in the middle of the night, he usually throws up his hands and surrenders his abstract position to concrete interests (like money, position, and power). I watched this happen in the late 1980s, when I saw my first book, AIDS INC., come into print.
The book took on CAUSATION, one of the interests of both the medical and philosophical profession. My investigation centered on: how do you decide a particular germ causes a particular disease?
I won’t bother going into all the details here. Suffice it to say, when I contacted a few academic folks I knew from my days as a college student studying philosophy, they shut their eyes tight and pretended they were having a bad dream, nothing more. They built a wall of silence. You see, asking them for a comment about causation was now treading on medical territory—far more real than the realm of their usual philosophical fiddling. If it turned out the entire medical cartel was tap dancing and faking a concept of causation, in order to falsely blame certain viruses for causing certain (high-profit) diseases, THAT was a scandal of immense proportions. And these academic philosophers wanted no part of it. They didn’t want to see their cozy positions in ivory towers ripped asunder. They didn’t want the concrete to intrude on the abstract. It was all well and good to cite Hume and Ayer and various logicians on the issue of causation, when nothing was at stake, but to move forward into a world where, depending on your view of cause and effect, some people made billions of dollars while other people died unnecessarily…that was out of the question. Therefore, my book was “reckless.” Therefore: no comment. Therefore: “Leave us alone. We never meant for you to grab these ideas and actually use them, logically, to shake up the invisible power structure. You’re doing something unseemly. You’re reflecting badly on us. You’re endangering reputations.”
Aha.
Do not upset apple carts. Do not expose crimes.
In my book, AIDS INC., I performed an obscene act. I implied that, by any reasonable standard of cause and effect, HIV had never been proved to cause the condition called AIDS. I was suddenly a philosopher with a weapon. I was shining a light in a cave where researchers were plundering logic to fake a proof. And, to continue the exercise, I was therefore demonstrating that AIDS was not one condition at all. It was an array of circumstances that produced, in different ways, in different people, the destruction of the immune system—and if you wanted to heal THAT, you had to find, in each afflicted person, what had attacked his immune system (not HIV), and then you had to try to reverse that affliction. In doing so, you could save lives. If, on the other hand, you persisted with the HIV myth, and utilized highly toxic drugs like AZT, you would kill people. Many people.
But the “philosophers” I approached saw no benefit in examining that investigation. The benefit (to them) was in ignoring it.
I would have welcomed an honest debate. But no offer was forthcoming.
I already knew, from my college years, that the walled off Territory of the Abstract was its own province; but this experience with my book, in 1988, was the last straw.
I was trying to approach cowards.
Unfettered, reasoned free speech was not their aim.
Up to a point, advanced education exists. But when you go beyond that point, you’re in the Empty Quarter. You’re staring at a vast parched desert.
Turn around. Walk away. You’re on your own. Your education now takes on a completely different cast. You learn how to apply analysis and do investigation independently.
That process, speaking from experience, is exhilarating.
The mines, and the caves in them, contain gold.
Here’s a quick contemporary analysis of causation: the Zika virus. In a nutshell, Brazilian researchers, working at “ground zero of the purported microcephaly (birth defect) outbreak,” declared Zika to be the cause. However, they admitted—before they cut off all communication on the subject—that traces of Zika could only be found in roughly 15% of babies with microcephaly. This correlation was astonishingly weak.
No matter what version of cause and effect you might favor, there is no way under the sun you can conclude that Zika causes microcephaly, when it can’t be found in 85% of cases.
Any honest researcher will tell you this is a reason to reject Zika as the cause and go back to the drawing board.
But that hasn’t happened. In fact, several groups are conducting studies on a Zika vaccine. They’re plunging forward.
One of these candidate-vaccines delivers synthesized genes into the body…where the genes…permanently alter the recipient’s DNA.
In this case, lying about causation leads to unbridled tinkering with populations’ genetic structure.
But why should academic philosophers care about that? They’re in their safe world, apart from, what shall we call it, LIFE.
HIV faced a similar problem that Zika does. Researchers correlated a diagnosis of AIDS with a positive HIV antibody test: many people who tested positive were later diagnosed with AIDS. There was a problem, however. The HIV antibody test will register positive for at least 60 reasons that have nothing to do with the presence of HIV in the body.
Independent researcher Christine Johnson documented this fact. Her classic investigation has been reprinted at aliveandwell.org. Here is just a partial list of factors that will cause an HIV antibody test to read positive for reasons that have nothing to do with HIV:
There is much, much more to the HIV story (including serious doubts about whether HIV actually exists). But you get the general idea. The correlation between HIV and AIDS is irreparably weak…
I had a brief conversation about this with an academic philosophy professor. It went this way:
—So, Professor, you see that this is an issue of causation. If the correlation is very weak, the whole assumption of causation fails.
—Well, I don’t know about that. Other factors could be involved.
—Such as?
—That’s the whole point. We don’t know what the other factors are.
—We know enough. If researchers are going to say a particular virus causes a particular disease, they have to establish, at minimum, strong correlation. They have to prove, for starters, that the virus is present in the overwhelming percentage of cases of the disease.
—So this is the kind of thing you’ve been doing since you graduated from school?
—Yes.
—I think you need to reassess your approach.
—Why?
—Disease causation is an issue best left to medical experts.
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Source: TheMindUnleashed.com
Christina Sarich
April 30, 2017
“One inch of sitting, one inch of Buddha. Like lightning all thoughts come and pass. Just once look into your mind-depths: Nothing else has ever been.” – Manzan Dohaku (1635-1714)
The Zen culture and daily life practiced in the East is often misinterpreted by Western aspirants. Many think it is nothing more than sitting on a cushion in a Buddhist Zen monastery, practicing Zazen for countless hours a day, perceived as a fruitless endeavor, and an impossible one! Once you understand more about “Zen living” though, you can truly change the way you experience reality for the better.
The first thing to understand about Zen is that it is a practice in non-being. This doesn’t translate to nihilism, but as an opposite cultural thrust of what we most often do in the West, which is to assert ourselves, often in an aggressive manner.
We are like the adolescent child learning to make his way in the world in the West, but the Eastern philosophies of Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. are more about relaxing into the flow – an unfettered experience of life without any assertion of our will at all, perhaps how we would imagine an old man behaving after he has made his mark, or even like an innocent baby that has not yet learned he will struggle for love, attention, money, success, etc.
For many who have grown up being taught they have to fight, plan, and work themselves to death, this can be a very hard concept to understand.
Zen also doesn’t fit into a neat conceptual package like many Westerns would like it to. You could use a few catch phrases to try to encapsulate it, but this wouldn’t be Zen. It defies doctrinal teachings and can’t even be described accurately through a list of sutras or rules. There are no “commandments,” such as we are used to in the Judeo-Christian religions.
Nonetheless, Zen asks us to give our “natural, or original face” to the world, and not an egoic mask. It is perhaps in learning how to be authentic through and through that we start to realize what Zen really is. Zen even frowns on anyone who has concrete answers to life’s biggest questions – about God, life after death, our own mortality, etc. Zen Master Taisen Deshimaru once said, “It is impossible to give a definite answer to those questions, unless you suffer from a major mental disorder.”
The more important focus in Zen is to ask the right questions. The answers are secondary, because these only come, very personally, and uniquely to each person as they quiet their minds and begin to return to their original state of being.
This is a marked difference from the Western viewpoint. We are trained from our earliest years to seek more, try harder, and work as hard as we can to achieve some finite goal. Then, after achieving all the material success offered by the world and the sweat and toil of these endeavors, we discover that we still aren’t happy. Zen would suggest this is because we have erroneously attempted to “add more,” instead of stripping away the artifice.
This difference can be demonstrated in the story of Dogen Kigen (道元希玄) who was disturbed by the Tendai concept of “original enlightenment.” He wanted to understand this concept fully – one which was taught by the Buddha himself.
The Buddha believed that enlightenment is inherent in all beings – any sentient creature has the ability to achieve this state. But Kigen wondered why, if all people were already enlightened, then why do they continue to seek enlightenment? He could not find the answer within the Tendai school of Buddhism, so he went looking for it somewhere else.
He ended up studying Rinzai Zen with the famous Zen teacher, Eisai’s disciple, Myozen. Here Dogen became disenchanted with Myozen’s tactic of relying heavily on koans to teach enlightenment. These are mental puzzles meant to force or shock the mind into enlightenment.
Kigen finally ended up in the Soto school (曹洞宗) of Zen, Zazen, or sitting meditation. This practice, Shikantaza, or “just sitting” was the vehicle of Buddha‘s Awakening. It is the essence of Soto Zen. In this practice, there is no goal to be attained beyond the practice itself. Unlike the Western idea of doing more, getting more, or ‘being’ more, in Soto Zen, you don’t do anything but sit. You only worry about experiencing the present moment fully. You become aware of every action and thought in the here and now. You are acutely aware, you might say.
As Zen Master Taisen Deshimaru once said, “Zazen has no object, it is purposeless, it only brings us back to ourselves.” One doesn’t need to worry about Satori (Japanese word for enlightenment).
Strangely though, in doing less, we experience more. We get to know our “original face” in experiencing emptiness. Westerners find this so difficult to do because there is no goal. We don’t “try.” If anything, we must learn to “un-try.”
As Zen master, Taisen Deshimaru said: “By simply sitting, without looking for any goal or any personal benefit, if your posture, your breathing and your state of mind are in harmony, you will understand the true Zen; you will understand the Buddha’s nature.”
Zen practiced in this way returns us to our original condition, and this changes our lives in ways that are almost indescribable.
We learn who we really are, and what we really desire (which is almost never what you think it will be.) We give up cultural, religious, nationalistic, and other presuppositions about who we should be. We are free to experience more joy, because we accept ourselves as we are, not as an artificial person trying to be “worthy” of our parents, our peers, our bosses, our romantic partners, our children, or even our false selves.
Zen maintains that we are “not one” and “not two,” i.e., “positionless position,” where “not two” signals a negation of the stance that divides the whole into two parts, i.e., dualism, while “not one” designates a negation of this stance when the Zen practitioner dwells in the whole as one, while suspending judgment in meditation, i.e., non-dualism – but all of this is only realized in doing less and sitting, in being in Zazen.
We learn that most of the “action” we take in life is busy work. It is movement without cause, and without need. It is wasted effort. We say we don’t have time, but in Zazen we find that to be patently untrue. All we have is now, and in that moment, there is no time. This happens in real ways, not just conceptual ones.
People magically start solving their own problems because we stop trying to fix them for them. We also stop creating as many of our own problems, because we don’t act from the egoic impetus that forces us out into the world to act in disingenuous ways. We also are less concerned with taking actions to please others’ egos, and learn when to take true action, guided by our higher selves. We get more and more comfortable with allowing life to unfold, rather than having to force it into the tiny compartmentalized sections that make our egos feel they have control.
Zen offers the perfection of personhood. Maybe this brings us closer to our Godliness, or maybe it just means we are less flawed as men and women, but we begin to cherish simplicity and calm, instead of chasing after chaos. Zazen (just sitting) changes everything.
“The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”
– Socrates
It certainly seems these days that not a moment goes by without someone having some sort of disagreement. Not that people should always agree about everything, that’s not the point. Disagreements come in all shapes and forms, just like people do. With that said, it seems like a lot of the disagreements that abound nowadays regard a certain section of the populace’s ceaseless push to inculcate their beliefs on others, regardless of the consequences.
There seems to be two prevailing schools of thought out there regarding how to handle these situations. When aiding others in their search for truth, the initial school of thought [non-conformists] doesn’t mind when other individuals ask them questions about beliefs and ideas discussed. The second group [conformists] takes downright offense to anyone questioning them on anything. The former seeks to help the individual arrive at their own truth; the latter seeks to be the high priest, just like those of ancient times, who controlled the free flow of certain information.
This particular trend of individuals not wanting to be questioned seems to be growing in quite a few circles.Individuals who do wish to carry out further inquiry to seek firmer ground have nigh no options when speaking to closed-minded conformists because ultimately with a conformist, it’s their way or the highway.Ironically, what is happening to those who seek firmer ground is not unlike what happened to the “Father of Philosophy,” Socrates, over two millennia ago.
Socrates was feared because he wasn’t afraid of questioning an individual’s beliefs about any given subject, similar to individuals today who question the official narrative on myriad issues. In parallel fashion to modern conformists, in Socrates’ time the ultimate conformists of the time – as with much of history – was the state. This see saw bout of ideals that took place back then still takes place now as we can see. For all intents and purposes, because of his very ideals, Socrates is the Godfather of Non-conformity. Socrates is the living definition of a question mark.
With the Socratic Method – of querying deeply into the subject – Socrates would begin to dissect an individual’s paradigm and those inherent flaws if any, usually in the realms of justice and goodness. Because of Socrates’ method, many times the paradigms individuals had – inculcated by the state and by religion – would drastically shift or disintegrate altogether, and begin something anew. This lead the state to lash out against him for questioning the system, particularly the “might makes right” the state was notorious known for, and eventually got him executed.
The state feared that the changes Socrates’ was bringing about in the populace would continue to spread, and from their tyrannical point of view they could not allow that. Thankfully though, most of what he was able to accomplish still echoes to this day – even to this very post, thousands of years later.
In similar fashion, nowadays, people who push conformity are doing themselves and the other individuals a great disservice. This is because individuals pushing conformity are: [1] not being open minded, thus [2] not allowing themselves to grow by being able to see another individual’s point of view, whether it is true or not. Further, by attempting to force conformity on others they are [3] taking away a terrific learning opportunity from individuals truly seeking answers to poignant questions, and [4] in the worst case, these conformists are even losing relationships because of fear of the ego being overridden, as well as their beliefs possibly being shown to be made of hot air. All of this stands against the very nature of free-flowing inquiry.
Keen conversations of proactive mental discernment should have a certain flow, like a see saw, a back and forth between [like or unlike] minds. However, what is taking place is far from such a common sense and proactive approach. The talks that are taking place currently between conformists and non-conformists echo a societal instability brought about by the conformist that will only exacerbate with time.
Intricately, this particular issue is touched upon in the thought-provoking book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki, who cautions individuals on this very subject:
“Try not to force your idea on someone but rather think about it with him. If you feel you have won the discussion, that is also the wrong attitude. Try not to win in the argument; just listen to it; but it is also wrong to behave as if you had lost. Usually when we say something, we are apt to try to sell our teaching or force our idea.”[1]
In other words, allow others the freedom to make choices, to find their own path – to make mistakes. That is one of the best ways individuals grow, by learning from their choices. However, forcing opinions and/or beliefs on others is diametrically opposed to all that is good and sensible. Moreover, not only is overriding someone’s freedoms rather inhuman, or conformist to say the least, but it goes directly against the very idea of Freedom and its downright tyrannical. In contrast, if conformists would opt to listen to others, as happens in free-flowing conversations of open-minded individuals, those pushing their beliefs and agendas would come to an understanding as to why the other individual feels reticent to the particular issue. That simple step can help magnitudes in understanding where another person is coming from and why the other person feels as they feel. A conformist’s conversations never even get that far. Ironically, that would also be the place where arguably most progress could be made.
If inquiring individuals who wish to engage in mental discernment are not allowed their own personal moment of clarity – of piercing through the veil – they will not own the moment – know the truth – but merely borrow another person’s footsteps as their own. Such an instance robs the individuals of making great progress in their strides for the truth and thus leaves them at square one.
When someone is forced to intellectually conform they are not allowed the freedom to philosophize – to seek wisdom. Philosophy is crucial, for it literally means the love of wisdom. How is an individual ever going to gain insights, journey to wisdom, unless they are allowed or even urged to ask questions?
“If we do not philosophize, if we do not question appearances, if we are satisfied with whatever makes us feel happy, we will never know whether we are being deceived about who we are and what level of our being is being satisfied.”[2]
An individual that is not allowed to hone their senses and polish their intuition will not have the opportunity to learn to see the forest for the trees. If said individual merely accepts the authoritarian conformist’s attitudes they will suffer in many ways. These inquiring individuals will have a harder time – or nigh impossible time – figuring out deception [as we are seeing nowadays]; these individuals won’t be able to figure out a well argued argument based on facts and logic from outright speculation or downright lies; these genuinely curious individuals will also not be able to become as robust and self sufficient as possible as they could be in this coming age of [dis]information. Such an individual will be just like a boat in the ocean with a busted sail that is drifting aimlessly directly into an eternal storm.
That is why it’s imperative as individuals to help others realize their full potential as they seek truth and growth within our world. As other individuals grow, they will share what made them change in positive fashion. And as we learn from them, we can learn as well, and it begins a self reinforcing process in which the rising tide lifts all ships.
Ruminating a bit deeper into this entire conundrum, maybe this issue is about more than truth though. Perhaps there’s more on the line than meets the eye. What seems to be missing to some extent, in some individuals at least, is simply the ability for them to be caring human beings, regardless of beliefs. A truly caring, wholesome individual will not simply railroad someone else because they believe something different or refuse to believe them.
It seems that following a personal philosophy of seeking personal growth through an attempted mastery of your mental and spiritual wellbeing seems like a prudent choice to say the least. And personal growth involves more than just attaining truth or strengthening beliefs.
Observing the words of Kreeft once more:
“Wisdom is more than knowledge. Knowing all facts in a library does not make you wise. Wisdom is a knowledge not just of facts but of values, of what is humanly important; and it is a knowledge that is a lived, that is learned by experience and lived out in experience.”[3]
When conformists push their ideals and beliefs onto inquiring individuals, they take away the opportunity for those individuals to have meaningful experiences for growth and self-development, which includes more than simple truths or beliefs. Those instances may never take place again. Individuals that are not allowed to live to their fullest extent will only realize a fraction of the capability they would otherwise be able to achieve if they were allowed to venture upon their personal road less traveled – their individual journey.
Those who are allowed to gain personal insights on their road to self mastery will not only grow profoundly but will also develop a more robust Socratic Philosophy, just like the Greeks did in ancient times.
In ancient times:
“The Greeks became the world’s greatest philosophers partly because…they learned to question appearances to find something more, some hidden reality behind the appearances.”[4]
Such is the reason why appearances, beliefs and supposed facts must always be questioned. For if they are not, what might be hidden will never rise to the surface and will not be able to be seen in pure darkness. Truth is the only light beam that disintegrates the shadows. And the only way to attain truth is for individuals to hone their inner fire, their inner light.
Touching upon this very concern, award winning teacher, advocate of self-directed learning and of individual freedom, John Taylor Gatto urged in his landmark book Dumbing Us Down:
“People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes or to try again, or they will never master themselves, although they may well seem to be competent when they have in fact only memorized or imitated someone else’s performance. Success in my practice involves challenging many comfortable assumptions about what is worth learning and out of what material a good life is fashioned.”[5]
Questioning our conformable assumptions – our beliefs – about what is worth learning – for each individual – and bring about most growth is what this entire conundrum is about. That is why it is crucial that:
“One should not present others with ready-made answers, preach to them, or only make them memorize things. One needs to activate them. They should figure things out. The ambition can even be to liberate them.”[6]
To help individuals achieve total freedom – physically, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and mentally – they need to be encouraged to walk their own path, learn their own lessons – find their own wisdom.
If individuals aren’t allowed to grow, or choose not to, their mental faculties will atrophy, like someone who uses crutches constantly has their muscles atrophy from disuse.
As friends, colleagues, or simply caring human beings, perhaps it is imperative not to worry only about our subjective ideas, beliefs, or even outright facts. What’s important is helping the other individual wherever they may need help, along their road, so they can then better understand whatever it is that they seek knowledge in. What got them to their current point in life is vastly different to what got you to yours. In like fashion, what gets them to the truth will most likely be vastly different than what got you to it.
Allowing other individuals the opportunity for growth is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another human being in their journey. Along this journey, other individuals may at times need help.Walk along side them, as long as they need, and help them when possible. But remember, their life is their journey.
While your paths may cross time and again, ultimately an individual’s journey will be a rather unique and authentic experience. Along this path, the side of the road will surely be rife with random rocks lacking meaning. But now and again, among/amidst the ruble, an individual’s curiosities will be sparked by sparkles of truth, and they will find gratifying gems. These are the very gems of wisdom that will push individuals further down their path to intellectual treasure, further towards their adventure for truth – towards individual growth.
Ultimately, what another individual does is up to them, for its their life, their freedom, their choice. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t help them along that journey. Just help them in any way you can, especially if they implore you for help. That’s what friendship is all about. That’s what being a caring human being is all about.
And maybe, just maybe, one day these individuals will realize that it was you whose left some of those gems along their road, and that they’ve been given a gift, and that it’s been there all along, just waiting for the right moment.
And the right moment is now.
Give them that gift.
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Footnotes:
Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, researcher, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, humanitarian, and freelance writer who studies and mirrors regularly subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.
His own personal blog is BreakawayConsciousnessBlog.wordpress.com where his personal work is shared, while TheBreakaway.wordpress.com serves as a media portal which mirrors vital information usually ignored by mainstream press, but still highly crucial to our individual understanding of various facets of the world.
Featured within the February Book Haul, The Philosophy Of Tolkien – The Worldview Behind Lord Of The Rings by Peter Kreeft Ph.D. is quite an insightful book, in which Kreeft searches for philosophical gems of wisdom embedded by J.R.R. Tolkien within his magnum opus, Lord of the Rings.
Sprinkled generously throughout the book are extrapolations regarding Tolkien’s philosophical view, which are employed in answering some of the most vital and profound philosophical questions. The questions revolving around this regard: metaphysics (all-that is), philosophical theology (God), angelology (angels), cosmology (the cosmos), anthropology (man), epistemology (knowledge), philosophy of history, aesthetics (beauty), linguistics (philosophy of language), political philosophy and ethics.
Along with commentary about fifty of the greatest questions that have been ever asked regarding the topics above, the book features quite a few references to Lord Of The Rings as well as “three works of Tolkien’s that form the most authentic commendatory on it: his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, The Silmarillion, and The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.”[1]
To help break down those fifty questions, Kreeft presents a variety of tools “for understanding each of the philosophical issues The Lord Of the Rings treats:
a. An explanation of the meaning and importance of the question;
b. a key quotation from The Lord of the Rings showing how Tolkien answered the question (many more passages are given in the Concordance to The Lord of the Rings in the Appendix);
c. a quotation from Tolkien’s other writings (usually a letter) that explains or comments on the them in The Lord of the Rings;
d. a quotation from C.S. Lewis, Tolkien’s closest friend, showing the same philosophy directly stated.”[2]
As in his other works, Kreeft does a reliable job of not only introducing the topic to the reader and helping the reader get to ‘know’ the ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien and everything he stood for, but he also supplants that with reasonable analysis in showing why each of the philosophical questions answered by this particular book are important.
Kreeft opts to begin the book with an apt introduction not only telling the reader what the he seeks to accomplish, but also detailing comprehensive insights that tackle many of the questions the reader might have. Kreeft even goes on to state the five dimensions that make any story great, and why and how The Lord of The Rings attains all those five dimensions.
Beyond that, and perhaps, more importantly, the following is the main reason why The Lord of the Rings has appealed so much to our culture:
“The Lord of the Rings heals our culture as well as our souls. It gives us the most rare and precious thing in modern literature: the heroic. It is a call to heroism; it is a horn like the horn of Rohan, which Merry received from Théoden and used to rouse the Hobbits of the Shire from their sheepish niceness and passivity to throw off their tyrants, first in their souls and then in their society.”[3]
And in an age where authoritarianism, tyranny and fascism are becoming more mainstream, a book like this may perhaps help individuals rise out of their doldrums and help them become cognizant of the freedoms they are so quickly losing. That’s a whole different story, though.
Another great strength of this book is that it shows why both philosophy and literature are joined at the hip. This is because:
“They [philosophy and literature] can work like two lenses of a pair of binoculars. Philosophy argues abstractly. Literature argues too – it persuades, it changes the reader – but concretely. Philosophy says truth, literature shows truth.”[4]
Finally, this book also features a Bibliography, as well as an Appendix that feature countless references which address the philosophy of Tolkien.
Whether you’re searching for an engaging book that goes into the deeper philosophical outlook of The Lord of the Rings, or perhaps a book that might serve as an introduction to philosophy, or simply a research tool that features a lot of substance regarding L.O.T.R. and Tolkien’s philosophy, ruminate upon getting this book, for it does all that, and more.
[1] Peter Kreeft Ph.D., The Philosophy Of Tolkien – The Worldview Behind Lord Of The Rings, p. 10.
[2] Ibid., p. 11.
[3] Ibid., pp. 16-17.
[4] Ibid., p. 21.
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Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, researcher, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, humanitarian, and freelance writer who studies and mirrors regularly subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.
His own personal blog is BreakawayConsciousnessBlog.wordpress.com where his personal work is shared, while TheBreakaway.wordpress.com serves as a media portal which mirrors vital information usually ignored by mainstream press, but still highly crucial to our individual understanding of various facets of the world.
Source: TheMindUnleashed.com
Christina Sarich
February 14, 2017
Bruce Lee, the famous martial artist and movie star had an amazing understanding of Taoist principles. He applied them to his art, and lived them in his day-to-day life. He is still revered years after his death as a martial arts Jesus for good reason. His authenticity, and mastery of the martial arts, including Jeet Kune Do, extends into a mastery of self. There is so much to learn from this intrepid soul.
Bruce Lee once said,
“Taoist philosophy is essentially monistic. Matter and energy, Yang and Yin, heaven and earth are conceived of as essentially one or as tow coexistent poles of one indivisible whole.”
Lee was so convinced of Taoist philosophy that he named one of his teaching books the Tao of Jeet Kune Do.
The monistic view Lee refers to is a philosophical idea that all things arise from a single reality or substance. You can call this God, or the Tao, as the Taoists did, but this Oneness doesn’t fit into our convoluted and narrow image of the ‘One’ that we act out today.
Monism is in direct contrast to dualism, which holds that there are two kinds of substances (for instance good and evil). The word comes from the Greek ‘monos’ meaning single and without division.
Wherever Dualism distinguishes between body and soul, matter and spirit, object and subject, matter and force, Monism denies such a distinction or mergesboth in a higher unity.
It was this understanding that allowed Lee to see his opponents as part of the one – and to truly succeed by winning against himself. He often was able to beat much larger opponents not just by his impeccable training, but by his great consciousness, his immaculate mind, but sometimes his small stature and movie-star moves made him easy prey to men who had lesser wisdom.
Lee was not without ego, but his fight against that part of himself was evident for the world to observe, and this is perhaps why so many relate to him. The fighter was a teacher, really, and his most noble contribution to fighters both lesser and greater than himself physically, was in his legacy of upholding the Tao.
Lee’s philosophical Taoism (as contrasted with the religious variety) isn’t metaphysical or other-worldly, but instead was focused on the art of earthly living. He succeeded in this at times, and others, he failed.
Above all, Lee encouraged, as the Buddha did, to follow no one, and to move past limitations, even when they were set up by people in authority (which were sometimes other martial arts schools or supposed masters). Lee believed an endless process of trial and error was preferable to establishing one day’s intuition as an immutable law.
He didn’t believe in a fixed anything. His quote, ‘be like water,’ still resonates, because it so profoundly encapsulated his philosophy.
Lee also said,
“True observation begins when one sheds set patterns, and true freedom of expression occurs when one is beyond systems.
Knowledge is fixed in time, whereas, knowing is continual. Knowledge comes from a source, from accumulation, from a conclusion, while knowing is a movement.”
This is quite a decent explanation of the Tao which has no explanation. “Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” ~ Lao Tzu, the Tao te Ching
Lee lived some of the basic principles of the Tao, which can only be discovered for oneself:
He aided others who were an extension of his own expression.
He was always true to himself, even when others maligned him.
He connected with others and tried to treat them as he wanted to be treated.
He did not fight those who could not accept his true nature.
Eastern philosophy is a rather intricate subject that has many different viewpoints. This particular book couples well into that philosophy.
Everyday Tao – Living With Balance & Harmony by Deng Min-Dao is a very insightful book.
Split up into 15 different sections, Everyday Tao covers a variety of ways into which individuals are able to get in tune with the Tao. The 15 sections are: nature, silence, books, strategy, movement, skill, craft, conduct, moderation, devotion, perseverance, teaching, self, simplifying and union.
Using Chinese ideograms, which contain inherent stories therein, the author brings about much meaning showing the reader what each ideogram breaks into and what insights can be had.
The way the book is set up, each individual insight covering no more than a page, makes this the type of book that can be read straight through, or on a day-by-day basis. For me, the latter offered much enjoyment and meaning because I was able to digest and discern much of what the book provided and ponder it deeply therein without rushing.
Through and through, the book offers a no-nonsense approach into Taoist insights. As someone who’s relatively new to Eastern Philosophy and am open minded about it, there was much to appreciate, regardless if one is locked within a particular paradigm or not. This volume offers much value, and if you’re seeking more to read on Tao or Eastern Philosophy, do not hesitate – get this book.
This particular book is a great foray for those beginning to delve into dialectics.
In Dialectical Thinking – Zeno, Socrates, Kant, Marx by Tommi Juhani Hanjijarvi Ph.D., the author seeks to show how valuable dialectical thinking is as he examines the minds of former dialecticians.
To accomplish this, Hanjijarvi sifts through critical data points spoken by the likes of Socrates, Kant, Zeno and Marx. The author does make it a point to supplant additional data and couple it to specific dialectics discussed when the need arises.
For instance, while analyzing Marx’s foray into dialectics, the author delves into information brought about by Engel, Bernstein, Lenin and such.
As the author makes clear, dialectics have extensive uses. More importantly, as the author argues “Dialectics are always about the dynamics of the self.”
Being someone who is delving into formal dialectics for the first time, it was quite mentally invigorating seeing the different dialectics employed by the great dialecticians. Moreover, it was also interesting to note where some of their ruminations dovetailed and what paths it led them on. That said, there were times that the text demanded a bit more from the readers as its complexity increased some. Still, what the book offers is plenty even if it might be intricate at certain junctures.
These days, the benefit of thinking from opposite spectrums, as dialecticians do and this book showcases, would be a great skillset for individuals to learn. Rarely do people put themselves on both sides of an equation; people usually end up just simply fostering their points of views without taking the other person’s view into consideration. For instance, the mainstream media is the greatest purveyor of this and shuns anybody who wishes to think outside the box or question anything that is passed off as fact. And if they show two sides to a coin, it’s always to stoke the flames of the divide and conquer left right paradigm that we see manifesting in countless forms.
Of course, in reality, there are many sides to countless issues. This reason is why this type of book is vital, since it helps lay a solid foundation as an introductory volume into the discipline of dialectics.
Thinking unilaterally about incisive issues won’t help people think critically, nor will it help people to think outside the box. Predictably, this prevents individuals from grasping crucial issues at their core.
For those reasons, and many others, this book is definitely to be considered for the inquiring individual. In fact, am even going to suggest this book to some friends for homeschooling. Look forward to reading more books like this.
As an introduction to the dialectical thinking employed by some of the greatest dialecticians, this book carries out its premise rather well.
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Suggested resources reviewed below for those seeking ideas to self-teach and become autodidacts:
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