AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:44 pm
dachmidt wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 7:27 pm
I definetely get your point, Eugene, thank you!
@AshvinP can you further elaborate on what exactly you mean by "Once the human soul is defined in that rigid (and inaccurate) way, it is easy see why that sum total can never be the only 'thing' which exists."
How would you define the "I" in your own words?
And why does it need those multiple perspectives (by our alters)?
I will be posting an essay today which discusses the "I" by way of ancient mythology (and some modern philosophy). It is our imagination which will grasp these things much better than our intellect. For now, I don't think it is helpful to think of it in terms of "needing" multiple perspectives. That is simply the way it is now. That being said, we are more enriched when we come to know something from many different perspectives and angles rather than just one.
FYI
this essay is posted now. I will post a section below which is relevant:
Krishna:
"I am the Sacrifice! I am the Prayer!
I am the Funeral-Cake set for the dead!
I am the healing herb! I am the ghee,
The Mantra, and the flame, and that which burns!
I am —of all this boundless Universe —
The Father, Mother, Ancestor, and Guard!
The end of Learning! That which purifies
In lustral water! I am OM! I am
Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Ved;
The Way, the Fosterer, the Lord, the Judge,
The Witness; the Abode, the Refuge-House,
The Friend, the Fountain and the Sea of Life
Which sends, and swallows up; Treasure of Worlds
And Treasure-Chamber! Seed and Seed-Sower,
Whence endless harvests spring! Sun's heat is mine;
Heaven's rain is mine to grant or to withhold;
Death am I, and Immortal Life I am..."
The verses above will likely sound as pure divine egoism to the modern intellect. Many people may be surprised that such verses can be found in ancient Hindu spiritual tradition and question this English translation. That reaction actually serves a great purpose if it is harnessed properly - it is a dim reflection of the monumental soul-transformation Arjuna himself experienced in this revelation, as the concept of the essential "
I" was emerging from the depths of the communal spiritual realm into the fragmented physical one. And if we remember that "
Veda" means "
Word" in Sanskrit, and the
"I AM" is how Divinity revealed itself to Moses in the book of Exodus, we can begin connecting these images together to form a marker which will serve us well in our future mythic explorations. For now, we can simply observe how none of the above connections will be brought to life within us by way of rational intellect alone. They all call upon the intellect to go well beyond itself for their essential meaning, and it is our choice whether we respond to that call or not.
Well-educated scientists and philosophers of the modern age have the most difficult time responding to this call, because much of their career and self-identity is interwoven with a commitment to remain in the domain of intellect. It is no wonder, then, that Schopenhauer failed to find any redemptive Spirit in mythology; that he felt a good musical composition would provide infinitely more meaning to the human soul than all the content of the world's mythologies combined. For him, the latter simply occupied humanity intellectually while its collective soul withers and dies as assuredly as the tree returns to the ground from which it grows. I too would always prefer experience of music over contemplation of mythology if I failed to perceive how the intellect can overcome itself, but we are not forced to make this conceit of the human spirit. Schopenhauer's contemporaries in German idealist philosophy, Fichte and Hegel, made no such conceit.
They recognized that what we refer to as the "
I" of the human soul - also referred to as the "
Spirit" - cannot be derived from anything outside of itself. The whole phenomenal world comes into being by way of the "
I" recognizing its own spiritual activity, and therefore it is that spiritual activity where we always find the noumenon and phenomenon united. Steiner broadly referred to that activity as "
Thinking", which includes reason, imagination, inspiration, and intuition. None of these conclusions must be accepted on Kant's blind faith or by Schopenhauer's blind will, but can be discovered through our imaginative vocation and responsibility as human souls. We can work hard and smart from the phenomenology of physical and mythical imagery, as it presents in our experience, back to the creative Spirit who gives rise to those images within us. Then we can come to the 'frightening conclusion' with Goethe that, "
I am the decisive element - it is my personal approach that creates the climate; it is my daily mood that makes the weather."
The ‘I’ posits itself, and it is by virtue of this mere positing of itself; and conversely: The ‘I’ is, and posits its existence, by virtue of its mere existence. It is at the same time the one acting and the product of its action; the active one and what is brought forth by the activity; action and deed are one and the same; and therefore the ‘I am’ is the expression of an active deed.
- Gottlieb Fichte, The Vocation of Man (1799)
The spirit of its gratitude is accordingly tinged with the most deep-seated feelings of abjectness and of indignation. The pure I, seeing itself outside of and dissevered from itself, here finds that all continuity and community with others, everything affirmed as law, as the good, as right, has gone to rack and ruin. All equality has dissolved; for everywhere rampant is the sheerest disparity, the utter insignificance of what’s absolutely vital, the heteronomy of autonomy itself. The pure I has itself come wholly undone...
Yet, as self, consciousness forthwith surmounts the contradiction—being so perfectly elastic that it in turn 'ifies' the self’s being thus 'ified', rejects the self’s being abjectly present to itself as something alien, and manages, while aghast at this way of “acquiring” a self, to be present to itself in the act of acquisition after all.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807)
