Being is, and cannot be

“Being is, and cannot be”

Parmenides Cited in Mystical Hours

Here are some thoughts from Br. Teasdale on the state of Being:

“Parmenides (c.512-445 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who probably came out of the Pythagorean school of mathematical thinkers. This insight about the necessity of being and the impossibility of not being was an overpowering illumination for him. His vision of the divine is that because it exists, non Being cannot exist. 

Everything depends on the weight of being. His illumination laid the foundation in the West for metaphysics, the science of the absolute… Martin Heidegger.

His vision was so absolute that its intense intellectual necessity to open a door to certitude…”

While the rigors of such adamant philosophical argumentation can be admired, from my perspective, certitude comes to us by faith, not by intellectual argument. Additionally, while being certain is a very comforting and affirming place to be, it is rarely accomplished in what I would call `real life”, that is apart from the ivy towers of speculation and all of those vigorous defenses, arguments, and postulates. 

Two observations of my own… Being certain, or having no other alternative views of God, reality, life leads us to the absolute declaration of the allness of God…That there is no genuine or actual evil, or any force opposite or apart from God’s reality in this absolute sense.  

While I can ascribe to this as an aspirational truth for our personal spiritual progress or realization, I am unsure that holding it as an absolute ideal will always bear the fruit of its intentions, no matter how virtuous they might be. 

In certain approaches to Christian or metaphysical healing, there is this declaration of God being All in All, and that the refusal to allow any thought to exist that is short of this absolute statement is to admit to the possibilities of disease, sickness. mental problems, evil, etc..

Such thought adamantly held in one’s mind and will by iron-clad assertion is required for such a healing/transformation to occur; and furthermore, this belief/statement of the absolute can be held secondarily by the healer/practitioner because since Mind is universal and we are all one, the healing can happen by a spiritual osmosis or sharing of an ultimate reality… 

It might be what we would call a psychosomatic cure or an overwhelming trust/acceptance of the healer… or something else! 

While I wish to refrain from any acerbic outlook, as I do believe that “With God anything is possible”,  the clarity of consciousness required to hold fast to such an absolute, at least for me, seems unattainable or remote at best…

Second, the need for certitude… Philosophically, I am more likely to align myself with Kierkegaard when he said, “[Faith is found in possibilities; and that our possibilities for growth/progress/evolution etc., is more gradual;, and more likely to be anchored by our faith  and our sense of wholeness as they are aligned with God; with grace, with the emerging realities that come with study, prayer, persistence, perseverance and the indispensable wisdom of experience. 

So it is not that I dismiss absolutes, it is that I do not believe we human beings can comprehend that lack of duality sufficiently– At this place, and this point in time, at this juncture in my human history, I see it more as a process of realization or attainment, not as an absolute that one can confidently declare as a statement of fact, without actively acknowledging all the struggle we endure on the way to embodiment of this absolute truth. 

The Sufis teach that consciousness of God, and the awareness of ourselves as the image and likeness of God is a process of “polishing the mirror.” While Allah is an absolute truth, that nothing exists outside of God, they also teach that it is our human task and responsibility to clear and clarify our consciousness so that the truth and the reality of God can shine through.

As long as we live with an ego, or as long as we are on the earth plane that is built on many objective dualities like day and night, etc. the allness of God as a desired result of our prayers and affirmations remains an aspirational goal for the vast majority of us; including those who consider themselves to be devout, and deeply committed to a religious and spiritual path…