the writing reminds me of the intro to twilight zone." Journey into another dimension unlocked by the imagination, It is a realm beyond the ordinary...."
I was fairly a fanatic about The Twilight Zone in my younger years, including not just watching reruns of the original series but reading the paperback short story anthologies adapted from those episodes. Come to think of it, I still am. And I'm also an inveterate fan of great opening narration to fantasy and horror television and radio shows in general, as evidenced in my penchant for quoting the opening and closing narration from the 1980s TV series Tales from the Darkside (see, for example, https://www.livingdark.net/p/the-imaginal-doorway-when-creativity). So that's probably the influence at work. 😊
Well said ! I'm so weary of the absolute certainty of every conceivable panacea posited for the bad dream....( don't eat pizza after 6:PM ). Thanks, Matt ! I look forward to purchasing your book.
Matt, this is so well-worded. Deep resonance and knowing, yes, this is true. Relief that someone is giving a clear and infinitely wise and kind voice to this in modern current contextual language. Thank you! (And, yes, I am always interested in what you read.)
That’s a good expression of the Advaitic view, that the world’s constant change can’t offer real security.
I am ex-Yogacarin, but my own sense is more Berkeleyan or Hegelian. I see the world not as something to transcend (via non-dualism), but as Spirit learning to know itself and evolve. What looks like chaos or decline might be part of simple unfolding.
A nondual view that remains true to its principle will, I think, result in or manifest as the same approach, viewpoint, understanding, way of life that you describe. One can take refuge, as it were, in the disinvestment in appearance that I describe in this post. One can also fully consent to inhabiting and experiencing the world-projection or -dream. One can see these as both being totally valid, and in fact as existing in a "higher" unity.
In principle, yes. Nowadays, I am not so much invested in metaphysics anymore. For me, ultimately, these are different ways of framing whatever is out there, some more helpful than others. And that’s what I find key: how useful a view is from a pragmatic standpoint, since that’s how I tend to orient myself (as a pragmatist).
But that said, I was influenced by a Deleuzian line of thought, and he had qualms with “metaphysical unity”. He often described it as a kind of “repressive synthesis,” that is, the move that subordinates multiplicity to unity, treating differentiation as an illusory rather than a creative force (building on Nietzsche’s “will to power”).
For Deleuze, to say that difference is ultimately unreal (as Vedanta/some forms of Buddhism say) is a betrayal of becoming. In many Eastern philosophies, the goal is to transcend difference away from multiplicity. I believe Deleuze even uses the phrase "negative theology of Being" when describing a 'cult of One', or something to that effect. His view is that the philosophy's goal is to overcome this notion. So, instead, Deleuze affirms immanence, where differentiation is the real.
But Hegel's entire project is somewhere halfway, and it's still tempting to me. It maintains the dynamic tension between unity and difference, as in it’s not simply either/or, and it's a "dynamic monism". Deleuze only diverged from Hegel in that he doesn't think becoming is ever resolved into anything. I maintain the stance that Being is somewhat self-resolving, striving to know itself and to evolve, although its telos (the end) is unknown.
I dig your articulation of this. Notwithstanding the attempts of some people and systems to equate non-duality with a kind of monism or undifferentiation that trumps or supersedes multiplicity, I think the vision or articulation of it as truly advaita, understood in the classic sense of "not one, not two," quite effectively avoids this by acknowledging the simultaneous truth of both multiplicity and unity. In fact, that's the fundamental mystery of the whole show, though it's a mystery that, far from being obscure and hidden, presents itself right on the surface of things.
“The ancient Buddhist and Christian texts warned us long ago of the ‘Curse’ that was coming—the evil force that seeks to usurp Divinity at the End of Days. The ancient wisdom of the prophets and the saints is going to be supplanted by the bureaucratic dictates of organised nihilism. Our modern worship of materialism, our blotting out of traditionalism and culture, the creeping self-loathing and hatred we feel towards purity as we actively embrace sin, our abominable worship at foul machine altars, all this hideous progress is nothing but the old demons assuming new forms. People’s minds being programmed like machines, their thoughts confined to a series of operational formulae—they are becoming mere cogs in the controlling system.” - Mark Samuels, “If Destiny Still Reigns” (from “Charnel Glamour”)
the writing reminds me of the intro to twilight zone." Journey into another dimension unlocked by the imagination, It is a realm beyond the ordinary...."
I was fairly a fanatic about The Twilight Zone in my younger years, including not just watching reruns of the original series but reading the paperback short story anthologies adapted from those episodes. Come to think of it, I still am. And I'm also an inveterate fan of great opening narration to fantasy and horror television and radio shows in general, as evidenced in my penchant for quoting the opening and closing narration from the 1980s TV series Tales from the Darkside (see, for example, https://www.livingdark.net/p/the-imaginal-doorway-when-creativity). So that's probably the influence at work. 😊
Well said ! I'm so weary of the absolute certainty of every conceivable panacea posited for the bad dream....( don't eat pizza after 6:PM ). Thanks, Matt ! I look forward to purchasing your book.
Thanks, Richard!
Matt, this is so well-worded. Deep resonance and knowing, yes, this is true. Relief that someone is giving a clear and infinitely wise and kind voice to this in modern current contextual language. Thank you! (And, yes, I am always interested in what you read.)
Thank you, Sophia!
That’s a good expression of the Advaitic view, that the world’s constant change can’t offer real security.
I am ex-Yogacarin, but my own sense is more Berkeleyan or Hegelian. I see the world not as something to transcend (via non-dualism), but as Spirit learning to know itself and evolve. What looks like chaos or decline might be part of simple unfolding.
A nondual view that remains true to its principle will, I think, result in or manifest as the same approach, viewpoint, understanding, way of life that you describe. One can take refuge, as it were, in the disinvestment in appearance that I describe in this post. One can also fully consent to inhabiting and experiencing the world-projection or -dream. One can see these as both being totally valid, and in fact as existing in a "higher" unity.
In principle, yes. Nowadays, I am not so much invested in metaphysics anymore. For me, ultimately, these are different ways of framing whatever is out there, some more helpful than others. And that’s what I find key: how useful a view is from a pragmatic standpoint, since that’s how I tend to orient myself (as a pragmatist).
But that said, I was influenced by a Deleuzian line of thought, and he had qualms with “metaphysical unity”. He often described it as a kind of “repressive synthesis,” that is, the move that subordinates multiplicity to unity, treating differentiation as an illusory rather than a creative force (building on Nietzsche’s “will to power”).
For Deleuze, to say that difference is ultimately unreal (as Vedanta/some forms of Buddhism say) is a betrayal of becoming. In many Eastern philosophies, the goal is to transcend difference away from multiplicity. I believe Deleuze even uses the phrase "negative theology of Being" when describing a 'cult of One', or something to that effect. His view is that the philosophy's goal is to overcome this notion. So, instead, Deleuze affirms immanence, where differentiation is the real.
But Hegel's entire project is somewhere halfway, and it's still tempting to me. It maintains the dynamic tension between unity and difference, as in it’s not simply either/or, and it's a "dynamic monism". Deleuze only diverged from Hegel in that he doesn't think becoming is ever resolved into anything. I maintain the stance that Being is somewhat self-resolving, striving to know itself and to evolve, although its telos (the end) is unknown.
I dig your articulation of this. Notwithstanding the attempts of some people and systems to equate non-duality with a kind of monism or undifferentiation that trumps or supersedes multiplicity, I think the vision or articulation of it as truly advaita, understood in the classic sense of "not one, not two," quite effectively avoids this by acknowledging the simultaneous truth of both multiplicity and unity. In fact, that's the fundamental mystery of the whole show, though it's a mystery that, far from being obscure and hidden, presents itself right on the surface of things.
“The ancient Buddhist and Christian texts warned us long ago of the ‘Curse’ that was coming—the evil force that seeks to usurp Divinity at the End of Days. The ancient wisdom of the prophets and the saints is going to be supplanted by the bureaucratic dictates of organised nihilism. Our modern worship of materialism, our blotting out of traditionalism and culture, the creeping self-loathing and hatred we feel towards purity as we actively embrace sin, our abominable worship at foul machine altars, all this hideous progress is nothing but the old demons assuming new forms. People’s minds being programmed like machines, their thoughts confined to a series of operational formulae—they are becoming mere cogs in the controlling system.” - Mark Samuels, “If Destiny Still Reigns” (from “Charnel Glamour”)
Aptly quoted. And from an exquisitely good book. 🙏
... and also, if I may say so, a book very aptly and exquisitely prefaced by a certain Matt Cardin ;-)