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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Sat May 10, 2003 7:34 am
Subject: Of Spiders and Flies and Webs

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=58638

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=57880

Step Into My Poem

"Step into my poem,"
Said the spider to the fly,
"Beyond event-horizon,
In my black-hole universe."

I construct invent-horizons.
For as far as you can see,
Big-bang expanding time-space,
I catch some flies this way.

You are trapped
and I am free.

Cosmology, cosmetic,
Share an etymology,
Metaphorical adornment
For the entomology
Of spider-fly relations
In domestic policy.

The moment now is passing,
My fancy bubble bursts,
My imagery is cobwebs.

"Shoo fly! Away!"

- Sitaram (5/05/2003)

========

A Noisless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor
hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

- Walt Whitman

One reader comments:

This life is like a spider web where my body is entangled. Without
web, can the spider exist I wonder?

Sitaram replies:

Spider : Fly Being : Nonbeing

==============================

The spider issues forth thread. In the same manner all worlds, all
gods, all beings including asuras come forth from me. According to
Brahmasamhita Text 13, the universe and beings exude out of the
porous body of the Lord. The split to create another being is the
original sin. In order to correct the original sin, the gods offered
sacrifice. The asuras were opposed to it. This was the beginning of
the struggle between the good and the evil.

It is like the spider climbing on its own thread to reach the higher
space; so also the yogi goes up on the sound thread of OM and reaches
his destination, silence (Param Brahman).

Avidya and maya are the products of prakriti, the gunas, namely
Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Sattva is good behavior, Rajas is action
and Tamas is ignorance. maya can be compared to a web. The spider
moves about the web easily. In the same manner, God moves about in
this phenomenal world, but the individual self gets caught in maya,
as a fly gets caught in a web. It is like the honeybee drinking
nectar gets trapped behind the closing petals of the flower.

http://www.bhagavadgitausa.com/D-POTPOURRI.htm

There are two kinds of knowledge: Sabda-Brahman, Param-Brahman. Param-
Brahman is superior and Sabda-Brahman is only a means to Param-
Brahman. Knowledge of Upanishads and Vedas, sacrifices, and rituals
are essential for growth and development of the soul or atman to a
finite stage. After that stage, they have to be given up in the same
spirit of detachment from desires. Here you are alone by your own
self: No prop or support is given to the self; you are dead to the
world, figuratively; you are divested of everything that you owned be
it material or knowledge; names and forms do not matter anymore. You
ride the OM sound waves of Sabda-Brahman until you reach the Param-
Brahman, when the sound-syllable OM falls into silence. Sabda-Brahman
or Brahman of Sounds consists of all book knowledge including
rituals, sacrifices and Vedas. (Soundless Brahman is superior to
Sound Brahman.) But the latter is the preliminary step before
attainment of Soundless Brahman. When Soundless Brahman is attained,
the names, forms, books, rituals, sacrifices, prayers and hymns
should be abandoned. It is like saying that the raft should be
abandoned once you reach the shore, that the chaff should be
abandoned or thrown away, and that one should try to get to the rice.
It is said that the learned man, after acquiring Jnāna and Vijnān=
a
(knowledge and intuitive wisdom) through the study of sacred
scriptures, throws away the scriptural books as a farmer (grain
collector) throws away the straw after collecting the grain.

Ramana Maharishi uses an analogy: You remove the thorn from the sole
of the foot by another thorn and when done, throw away both thorns.
At this stage of development, rituals, Vedas, and sacrifices have to
be abandoned (at the dawn of higher realization of param-Brahman or
Soundless Brahman). There is stillness and silence: That is the goal,
that is the absorption, and that is the Bliss. It is like the spider
climbing on its own thread to reach the higher space; so also the
yogi goes up on the sound thread of OM and reaches his destination,
silence (Param Brahman). He rides on the sound waves of OM and his
goal is silence; he goes from sound to silence. He attained
Vijnāna―divine, intuitive, realized wisdom. He sheds names and f=
orms,
speech is nothing for him, books have no value, and there are no
hymns and prayers. Where he is, there is no fear; there is no sorrow;
there is tranquillity; there is silence; and there is bliss.

Those who have supreme faith in me with purity in thought, word and
deed without any desire for fruits – reward – are said to be good
men. Bhagavad Gita (17.17). The serpent is an allegory for the inner
weakness of man and his susceptibility to gratification, disobedience
of the word of God, and blame game. Hindus call this tree of
knowledge of good and evil as false knowledge: Avidya. This avidya or
nescience is neither existent nor nonexistent. It is inexplicable. It
cannot be existent, because God is the only real existence; but it is
existent, because without it, there is no phenomenal world. Avidya
and maya are the cause of the phenomenal world. This avidya was too
strong to overcome for Adam and Eve and could not be dispelled by
knowledge (Vidya). But it is not that strong that it cannot be
overcome. This avidya is transient, ephemeral, unpredictable, but
surmountable and casts a spell of maya, which is veiling, revealing
and projecting. It veils the Real; it reveals the nescience or
ignorance of the subject; and it is projecting the illusion of this
universe or the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This fruit on the
tree is an illusion superimposed on the Real, that is God or Brahman
or His word. This Avidya and maya are the products of prakriti, the
gunas, namely Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Sattva is good behavior,
Rajas is action and Tamas is ignorance. maya can be compared to a
web. The spider moves about the web easily. In the same manner, God
moves about in this phenomenal world, but the individual self gets
caught in maya, as a fly gets caught in a web. It is like the
honeybee drinking nectar gets trapped behind the closing petals of
the flower.

=====================

Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate

http://faculty.washington.edu/mkalton/10dia%20ch1%20web.htm

In [Chou Tun-i's] explanation of the Diagram, first he describes the
origin of yin and yang, change and transformation; then he clarifies
the matter, namely in terms of [the corresponding] endowment and
constitution of human beings. When he says, `Man alone receives [the
Five Agents] in their highest excellence and so is endowed with the
fullest spiritual potential,' [a reference to] man's pure and
perfectly good nature, what he is speaking of is the Supreme
Ultimate. `His physical form is produced and his spirit manifests
[intelligence]' is the doing of the activity of yang and the quiet of
yin. `His five-fold nature is stirred and acts' is the nature of
Water, Fire, Wood, Metal, and Earth produced when yang changes and
yin corresponds. `The distinction of good and evil arises' is the
likeness of the male and the female elements. `Human affairs take
place' is the likeness of the production and transformation of the
myriad creatures. And finally when we come to, `The Sage properly
orders these [affairs] according to the mean, correctness, humanity,
and righteousness, taking quiet as the essential; in this way he
establishes the ultimate standard for man.' This again refers to
man's having received the integral substance of the Supreme Ultimate,
with the result that he is conjoined with Heaven and Earth in a
perfect unity.

=====================

http://www.mindground.net/parmnag.html

Of Emptiness and Being: A Comparative Analysis of Parmenides and
Naagaarjuna
Delusion has an importance all its own, one that Parmenides does not
acknowledge. For how can truth exist without falsehood? Such extremes
have a way of supporting one another. This is another Buddhist truth
that Naagaarjuna mentions and describes in his works, that of
prataatyasamutpaada, or "dependent co-origination" (Garfield 221).
This basically denotes the interdependence of phenomena in which
events depend on other events, composites depend on their parts, and
everything has a remarkable way of sustaining everything else.

Naagaarjuna defines this in his own dialectic style:

Impurity cannot exist without depending on purity so that we explain
purity by impurity.
Therefore purity by itself cannot be attained.
Purity cannot exist without depending on impurity, so that we explain
impurity by purity.
Therefore impurity cannot exist by itself.
(Nakamura 61)

In the same respect, Naagaarjuna's truths interlock and support one
another. Subject and object are mutually conditioned, and the
essences of both are beyond verbal definition or intellectual
comprehension. If not for relative truth, absolute truth would be
unattainable (Stryk 284). This is the one positive assertion that can
be made in response to Parrmenides' Being: we are not bound forever
to our conditioned nature because we, as conditioned entities,
already are in our ultimate nature the unconditioned reality.

Conflict stems from the Pythagorean concept of how the "One" of
existence was created. The Pythagorean genesis of the world was
formed when this "One" inhaled or absorbed the surrounding void,
which credited the void with quite a high honor (Burkert 77). It
cannot be inferred, however, that the Pythagorean void which they
considered to be air itself is defined specifically as "non-Being,"
or that Parmenides interpreted the Pythagorean void in such a way.

Ionian physicists are also seen as targets of Parmenides because
their cosmological theories seemed to entail multiplicity of elements
and an eternal ratio of dual, shifting energies.

Vedaanta, which focused on the Vedas, the ancient oral traditions of
Hinduism, was a mystical school in Naagaarjuna's time whose basic
concept of Being moved toward the transcendentalist perspective that
Being was neither Being nor non-Being, a totally indescribable
situation that is beyond both speculation and investigation
(Kalupahana 6).

Although the fact that such theories were basically acceptable in
Naagaarjuna's culture perhaps made it more possible for him to
develop his later theories, another fact remains: that an
overwhelming Buddhist influence pervaded his life. The Buddhists of
his day, however, neither came to similar conclusions nor inferred
similar meanings to the Buddha's teachings as he later did by
pioneering his Middle Doctrine. He was to change the face of Buddhism
forever with his introduction of suunyataa (emptiness) as "Being", to
the extent that even his Maadhyamika followers were sometimes
referred to as suunyavaadins, or "exponents of the doctrine of
emptiness."

Middle Doctrine lies between the two theses that life "is" and "is
not": emptiness has neither Being nor non-Being, which would be
considered extremes that stray from the Middle Way itself (Jaspers
115). However, the path that is walked is not of endless denial or
negation.

The "Ultimate Truth" is the eventual goal, only by gaining freedom
from wiping out all views altogether, leaving no intellectual
hindrances to pure existence (Jacobson 61). The emptiness that is
espoused is in a Buddhist context, used as a technical term for "the
lack of independent existence, inherent existence, or essence in
things" (Garfield 219). To realize this emptiness is to gain freedom
from suffering, and eventually to gain freedom from any notion of
emptiness. In this way, at the very point that Naagaarjuna and
Parmenides seem to contrast the most, in some ways they actually
converge.

The "One Being" of Parmenides, though bearing striking similarities
with Naagaarjuna's suunyataa (emptiness), also provides for the most
profound contrasts. Both thinkers have been described as skeptics,
although what they are skeptical about seem at first glance to be
polar opposites. Parmenides lays out guidelines and strict boundaries
for possible views, while Naagaarjuna aims at wiping out all views as
they arise. At the same time, both of them still share a fearless,
vast, and all-devouring skepticism.

The most obvious mutual target for the skepticism of both Parmenides
and Naagaarjuna is the world of appearance, or the sensory realm that
humans easily perceive. This realm is understood by both to be an
illusion, albeit a necessary one. While Parmenides' attitude is that
the material world around us should not be taken as a granted
reality, merely a product of sensory perception, he does attach both
truth and reality to what he feels is a realm of pure thought,
or "Mind" (Phillips 546). This Mind is intensely both one and
changeless, rendering the apparent kaleidoscopic characteristics of
the known world behind as a rejection of the testimony given by the
senses (Taran 17). If the reality of the phenomenal world is denied
in such a way, then the solitary "Is" precludes it, and this "Is"
must be concentrated on by withdrawing from the world of the senses
(Burkert 285).

As both thinkers slash away at the cosmological or phenomenal views
that they claim are illusions, they do so with the power of their own
thought. For both, thought and knowledge alike are significant issues
that merit consideration. For Parmenides, thought itself is Being;
Being is the cause or total condition of thought (Phillips 552). This
is tricky, however, which Karl Jaspers describes quite well: "If we
think something, we must at the same time think something else, from
which the first something differs to or to which it is related. For
Parmenides this thinking is the source of illusion through separation
and name-giving. The truth must be thought as inseparably one, but in
the thinking, differentiations are born" (Jaspers 24).

There is a radical dynamism in reality; or, stated
otherwise, "Becoming" transforms all suggestions of "Being." Already
this shows an idea totally opposite of Parmenides. A second is that
knowledge and "Becoming" are coextensive; one "Becomes" what one
knows, and one can know only what is available to one's "Becoming." A
third presupposition is that there are two kinds of truth: the
mundane truth, valid for practical living, and the Ultimate Truth,
which is the beginning and end of release from worldly turmoil
(Streng 36).

+++++++++++

==================================================================

http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_2a.html

The Cosmic Plenum: Tillich: Urgrund and Urbild
"These theologies [of Tillich and Jung] have always included in the
nature of the divinity itself a demand to create...

"Modern variants of this position are to be found in the thought of
Hegel and Teilhard de Chardin, both of whom see creation and history
as necessary emanations from God destined to return to Him as
contributions to His completion. In fact Teilhard contends that a
theory of creation which cannot be shown to complete the Godhead both
devalues creation and cripples human creativity within it."
[Ibid, pp. 57-58.]

So it would seem fairly obvious that all three of these thinkers are
considering a creation in Process, a creation that somehow has a
Divine Purpose, a creation that must *work* not only outwardly, but
inwardly towards this goal. And the way and means to accomplish this
is through creativity.

Now we come to Tillich himself, as he enters into the dialectic of
being and nonbeing. As Tillich puts it:

"Such questions have forced theologians to relate nonbeing
dialectically to being-itself and consequently to God. Boehme's
*Urgrund,* Schelling's 'first potency," Hegel's "antithesis"...

"Being, limited by nonbeing, is finitude. Nonbeing appears as
the 'not yet' of being and as the 'no more' of being. It confronts
that which is with a definite end (finis). This is true of everything
except being-itself--which is not a 'thing.' As the power of being,
being-itself cannot have a beginning and an end. Otherwise it would
have arisen out of non-being. But nonbeing is literally nothing
except in relation to being. Being precedes nonbeing in ontological
validity...Being is the beginning without a beginning, the end
without an end. It is its own beginning and end, the initial power of
everything that is. However, everything which participates in the
power of being is 'mixed' with nonbeing. It is finite."

[Paul Tillich, SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, Volume I, University of Chicago
Press, 1951, pp. 188-189.]

As for Teilhard:

He does not believe that creation was a "periodic intrusion of the
First Cause," rather "it is an act co-extensive with the whole
duration of the universe." Teilhard continues. "God has been creating
ever since the beginning of time, and seen from within, his creation
(even his initial creation) takes the form of a transformation.
Participated being is not introduced in batches which are
differentiated later as a result of a non-creative modification: God
is continually breathing new being into us."
Tillich discusses this "divine creativity":
"The divine creativity, God's participation in history, his outgoing
character, [is] based on this dynamic element. It includes a 'not
yet' which is, however, always balanced by an 'already' within the
divine life..."
[Ibid, p. 246.]

So it would seem up to this point Tillich's thought fairly
corresponds with Teilhard, in that Creation is the repository of a
divine unfolding, in that Creation is evolving through the creative
effort of both God and its consciousness points, who are evolving
towards an "Ahead," transforming towards New Being that finitely has
no beginning nor end, but rather has its own Beginning and Ending.

But Tillich stresses:

"We go towards something that is not yet, and we come from something
that is no more. We are what we are by what we came from. We have a
beginning as we have an end. There was a time that was not *our*
time. We hear of it from those who are older than we; we read about
it in history books...It is hard for us to imagine our 'being-no-
more.' It is equally difficult to imagine our 'being-not-yet'...We
ask about life after death, yet seldom do we ask about our being
before birth. But is it possible to do one without the other? The
fourth gospel does not think so. When it speaks of the eternity of
the Christ, it does not only point to his return to eternity, but
also to his coming *from* eternity...He comes from another dimension
than that in which the past lies...he does not say, 'I was' before
Abraham; but he says 'I am' before Abraham was. He speaks of his
beginning out of eternity. And this is the beginning of everything
that is--not the uncounted billions of years--but the eternal as the
ultimate point in our past.

[And] "in every cell of our body, in every trait of our face, in
every moment of our soul, our past is the present."
[Paul Tillich, THE ETERNAL NOW, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1956, pp.
126-127.]

So it would seem that Tillich, like Teilhard, considers the Alpha to
be the Christ, standing outside time, yet entering somehow into
Creation, connecting to all its sub-totalities in a transformative
way. But what about the *future*? Tillich has talked of the past and
the present, but where does the future lead?

For Tillich, like Teilhard, Creation is trudging towards a
completion, a transformation towards New Being, the Omega. And for
Tillich, this "New Being" is also the Christ. Fair warning, however:
Tillich's concept of the Christ does not necessarily correspond with
the parochial Christianity we know today; but it is, nonetheless,
rooted deep in the Christology of Ancient Christianity.

So how did the Christian Fathers come to declare Jesus Christ as
the "Incarnation of the Logos"? Mainly, because the conceptualization
of the Logos had already long been "in the air," so to speak. A Great
Meme? Tillich explains:

"It can be called a conceptual symbol because the Logos, as conceived
by Stoicism, unites cosmological and religious elements. It unites
rational structure and creative power. In Philo and the Fourth Gospel
the religious and symbolic quality of the idea of the Logos prevails.
But the rational side does not disappear. [Take note that] The
rational structure of the universe is mediated through the Logos.
[And upon its reception by Early Christianity] The Logos [was]
actualized in a historical personality."
[Ibid, p. 112.]

Moving on, Tillich asks a significant question: "How can the New
Being who is called 'the Christ' transform reality if no concrete
trait of his nature is left.?" For Tillich it is mainly through
picture-building. "There is an *analogia imaginis,* namely, an
analogy between the picture and the actual personal life from which
it has arisen." And this leads us to the idea of the *Urbild,* the
original Archetype.

The Urbild means the original image or the Original Archetype. In
modern depth psychology the archetype becomes a paradigmatic model
for human activities. And the *typos*, the God-image, oft points the
way for a person to draw upon to not only adapt and survive in this
world, but to re-pattern himself into a higher stage of development.

In human societies there seems to have lurked the sense of a Great
Presence, picturing itself in human minds throughout the countless
generations. This Great Presence (called by many names) is the
genesis of human hope and transformation. Theologians have called it
the Original Archetype, the Urbild.

And in the Western World the Urbild has been mostly translated as
Jesus the Christ. As Jung put it: "What happens in the life of Christ
happens always and everywhere. In the Christian archetype all lives
of this kind are prefigured."

Furthermore, Jung says:

"The drama of the archetypal life of Christ describes in symbolic
images the events in the conscious life--as well as in the life that
transcends consciousness--of a man who has been transformed by his
higher destiny"

[Carl Jung, "A Psychological Approach to the Trinity," Psychology and
Religion, CW 11, par. 233.]

And as the Jungian scholar, Edward Edinger, put it: "In fact when the
Christian myth [Urbild] is examined carefully in the light of
analytical psychology, the conclusion is inescapable that...[its]
underlying meaning...is the quest for individuation...Understood
psychologically...this means that Christ is simultaneously a symbol
for both the Self and the ideal ego."

It would seem that the Original Archetype, for Tillich the Urbild of
Jesus Christ, through it's Great Presence, offers a Blueprint upon
which Creation's consciousness points can build noetically toward New
Being. For Tillich this entire process is about "metanoia,"
about "conversio." These are ancient religious terms that spell out
Spiritual Maturation.

It's this Spiritual Maturation on the part of sentient beings that is
significant for the building-up not only ourselves but, through
relationship (convergence?), Creation and the New Being. Yet Tillich
puts an interesting twist to the idea of conversion. It's genesis
essentially lies within the Great Presence, unfolds and breaks
through, and is *experienced* by us. If one is grasped by this Great
Presence, then one is thus a "member of the Spiritual Community."

Now Tillich begins to address Teilhard's idea of convergence!

"The New Being as process drives toward a mature relatedness. The
divine Spirit has rightly been described as the power of breaking
through the walls of self-seclusion. There is no way of overcoming
self-seclusion lastingly other than the impact of the power which
elevates the individual person above himself ecstatically and enables
him to find the other person--if the other person is also ready to be
elevated above himself."
[Ibid, p. 234.]

And Tillich proceeds, taking note of a significant problem: "All
other relations are transitory and ambiguous. They certainly exist
and fill the daily life, but they are symptoms of estrangement as
much as of reunion. All human relations have this character. Alone,
they cannot conquer loneliness, self-seclusion, and hostility. Only a
relation which is inherent in all other relations, and which can even
exist without them, is able to do so. Sanctification, or the process
toward Spiritual maturity, conquers loneliness by providing for
solitude and communion in interdependence."
[Ibid, p. 234.]

So it would seem that this Great Presence, this Spiritual Presence of
Tillich's, operable in the universe, breaking through creatively,
unfolding via the experience of Creation's consciousness- points,
providing an Urbild upon which to build, can be likened to
Teilhard's "Super Soul above our souls." Tillich's considerations
seem to correspond with Teilhard's idea of a "gigantic psycho-
biological operation" of cosmic evolution that points toward a "mega-
synthesis" of all the thinking elements of the earth forcing an
entree into the realm of the super-human.

====================================

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