Meaning, Freedom to choose, Action, and How We Should Act: A Perspective on Practical Philosophy and its Relationship with the Individual

Faith, reason and the rational coherence of inner transformation: Four Thoughts

First thought
I think the universal structure is about consciousness, and I think philosophy is about creativity, just as understanding, coming to know, and having a revelation, are all about creativity. They, as creativity, are all the step beyond reason and, as such, are acts of faith in some way; they all head off to somewhere unknown which is not necessarily ‘connected’ (or apparently not). It is like stepping forward, but in the dark, or dusk, or without help when you would like help. And this act cannot be an act of reason — I do not create a fictional character with reason. But in order to step forward, I must know where I have been, or at least where I am — stepping forward would have no meaning otherwise. And I need to be fairly certain of where I am — ‘I am here’. There is a difference between being (at least) ‘fairly certain’ of where I am, as opposed to unsure of where I am. It can only be a rational route that leads to ‘fairly certain’ (though faith might lead to ‘I am sure’ that certainty could be mistaken). If there is no rational route then taking the step forward may be impossible (from where would I be stepping and to where would I step? Could I step at all?). Similarly, I may create a fictional character, in the absence of rational process, but there must be rational process in the background (I have learned what a character is, what part a character plays in the story etc.). Descartes may have been inspired, and he may inspire me, but his inspiration was the ‘stepping forward’ — the rational thought preceded it even if it did not directly lead up to it. If this is not so, and I am inspired by Descartes (who did rational work), and I am only inspired by his inspiration, I still owe my inspiration to his rational work. If I have a revelation whilst sitting in a bus and only because I am sitting in a bus, I must accept that my revelation is, in some way, beholding to the rational processes that led up to the design and building of the bus which, themselves, are therefore necessarily connected to my inspiration. I am thinking that any inner creative act has to be, in some way, connected to reasons — but this does not mean it is a product of reason (nor that it is determined). A convincing rational argument can never be the direct means for a revelation occurring, for the act of creativity itself, but it can bring us to the point of revelation and convince us that the revelation has some foundation. Although we would be justified in being a little suspicious of this thought — ‘non-believers’ to ‘believers’ because they understand the ‘non-believer’ basis — it may be that process is not the same as true creation. And we could doubt we need convincing that the revelation must have foundation.

Second thought
We can say we experience ‘instantaneous’, intuitive, inner-transforming revelation which is not based on reason. However, when we say we experience ‘instantaneous’, intuitive, inner-transforming revelation which is not based on reason, in truth we are saying we experience ‘instantaneous’, intuitive, inner-transforming revelation which is not apparently based on reason. If we say I have had an experience and I cannot explain it, this only means that I cannot explain it. It does not mean that the experience I have had is unexplainable. The same applies to reason: there seems no reason why I have had that experience but that does not mean there is not a reason for that experience. If it is reasonable to doubt that there is a direct reason, it is very hard to doubt that, at least, there is a ‘third party reason’ (e.g. Descartes’ work being reason-based). If we believe in something simply because we believe it, then anything is believable and equally plausible. If we believe something that has a basis for our belief, then we are looking at a differently believable ‘something’. We are looking at a ‘something’ which we suspect may be more true than untrue. On the other hand, a belief-based belief will never be more true in any way than any other belief-based belief unless by coincidence (i.e. the believed belief simply coincides with ‘something’ which is intrinsically more true than simply ‘true’ because it is believed). When someone says, ‘I can’t explain it’, one connotation is that the thing in question is beyond explanation. Another connotation is that this person is unable to explain the thing which is, of course, still explainable. Because I do not know how guns, bullets and ballistics work, I cannot explain the journey of the bullet from the gun to the man; but I can say that the man was shot.

Third thought
The creative step happens to the individual when, in some way, either all the rational information is ‘in’, or when there is ‘enough’ rational information available — there is, if you like, no perceived reason to add any more at this point. For example, I read Descartes’ Meditations. I learn from his process, and skill, and clear-sighted devotion to his project, but there is a point at which I feel I do not need to know more. I could always still learn more, of course, but, at this point, I feel that not much, if anything, could be usefully added to the position in which I find myself. At this point, a number of things can happen: nothing can happen; something can happen which is not related; something can happen which is related. At this stage, the interval between my rational input and the next occurrence, I am no longer concerned about Descartes’ project in particular, nor concerned about whether I agree with his thinking programme or conclusions. At this point, I have absorbed all I want of Descartes’ work, and for the present I have left Descartes behind, so to speak.

If nothing happens, I may move onto other things, read other things, think other things, think nothing. There is a (possibly long) space of time. It will be much later that something happens which derives from (and then maybe only loosely), or relates to, my looking at Descartes. During this period I learn other things, think other things, the mixture of stuff in my mind grows in complexity and clarity, or I become more muddled and confused.

If something happens which is not related, then this post-Cartesian period has some conclusive feature. For example, I am sitting in an open space staring at the setting sun. I am not interested in the sunset — I have seen plenty of sunsets before — but I am, for some reason, interested in looking at the disc — the shape of the sun — a thing not possible during the glare of the day. I stare at it and suddenly — there is no ‘stepping into’ this new position that is discernible, there is no thought process that I can make out — I feel detached from myself — lost: a wind of awareness, Sartrean nausea, irrepressible starkness fills me. I stare. I feel overcome. It subsides a little, but I am in that state still. Calmer, I see the sun again, as if it had passed out of my vision for a moment or two and returned. Now it looks fresh, new, I feel I am seeing it for the first time — it is a different object and my relationship to it is different. I have not seen this thing before, I have not sensed what I am now sensing before. I feel a link between it and me. Something stretches between it and me — like a string. I realise a link between it and me. Suddenly, I know there is it and me. It is as though we are joined and I understand that I am being conscious of it and it is because I am being conscious of it. I realise that if I was not being conscious of it, it could not be. I am so certain of what I feel. I stare at it harder and I know it exists because I stare at it, and I am overwhelmed by the occurrence, and by my understanding of the occurrence. My understanding of the occurrence rivets me, and I cannot tear myself away. Finally, sadly, I do, and I expect the worst. I will have lost contact and my realisation will fade. But I discover that nothing has changed, the sun is still being because of me, and we are joined because of my consciousness of it. And Descartes’ revelation comes into my mind, and I realise how he must have felt when he realised that somehow he ‘thought he was’. And I realise that he captured something of the real world when that happened to him, just as I have done. I don’t agree with his conclusion but that is unimportant compared to the rightness of his realisation. I experience a buoyant ambivalence towards him — I don’t agree with him and yet he is right. The thinking process is central to both Descartes and me. It is thinking that brings me here, to where I am, and where I am, thinking, enables me to know that I am, and that the sun is because I am. And I feel a wave of empathy with the past — beyond Descartes, into the timeless reality of all things conscious. So many have felt the same, and the wind of realisation blows over me again, and I feel indebted to them in some strange way, and to Descartes, and close to them, and to Descartes, and isolated, and alone and the feeling of isolation and aloneness is elating me because it is in the company of all things conscious and together with their own isolation and loneliness. I understand the harmony of consciousness, the fabric of it, and I feel part of all things and in love with all things.

What I have experienced is a creative act. We think in many ways but there are two fundamental, and essential, ways which relate to the act of creativity: we store stuff in our minds, absorb information, catalogue it etc.; and we do things with this stuff, this information, this catalogue. If I look at a cloud, I can analyse the cloud (its form, composition, potential life span etc.) or I can see a shape in it which makes me think of, or imagine, something which is not a cloud. If I do the first, I am making a scientific contribution to a body of inductively based information. If I see a shape in the cloud, I am probably the only one that sees that shape. As such this shape, its form that exists because of my own conscious presence, is exclusively my own creative act. But, even as a creative act, it has not arisen from nowhere. Things do not emerge from nothing. I can only create that shape because I know of shapes. I have not truly ‘created’ a shape though I have imagined a shape which is probably exclusively a shape of my own and only of my own creation ( a sort of ‘new’ shape). If I go away and write about that shape, and name it, and imagine a world in which it lives as a mortal, female shape in the world, then I have created something entirely mine — it is (almost certainly) particular in an absolute sense, and is a true act of creation. But it still draws upon, derives from, my original sighting of the cloud and the basics of what the cloud was (and was understood by me to be), that is, its form, composition and potential life span etc.. That is all the creative act is — that is how it happens.

If something happens which is related then the connection between my insight and its antecedence is ready-made. For example, I put down my Descartes, Meditations, sit back and think about the cogito, how closely thought out it is, how extraordinary that Descartes could follow his thoughts like that, down and down, so closely, and arrive at such a clear and simple conclusion. ‘Of course!’ I think. ‘He must be right! Of course I only am because I think, how else can it be? He was right! And if Descartes was right, then what he was right about must be right for me. We cannot pick and choose between one ‘right’ and another ‘right’ — ‘right’ can only be ‘right’. And Descartes worked it out, and he was cleverer than me, he went so far with it, so deep, of course he must be right. I feel the same, I understand what he is saying, though I could never have done it myself. I could never have followed those steps myself. Descartes did them for me and the right conclusion is all that matters. I think therefore I am! Amazing! I don’t need any more information — I am, and every time I think it I realise it. My way of thinking is transformed — truly I am won over in a flash’. This is revelation-in-a-bottle — fully packaged inner transformation. But I stop and sit, and think and quickly begin to wonder. I am convinced by the rational process involved, both with Descartes’ system and between Descartes and myself, but there is something absent. I have not done it myself and that leaves a wide gap in my belief. The rational stages have gaps which my belief cannot tolerate. I am suspicious of myself. Am I just saying ‘Descartes thinks therefore I am’?

But where is ‘where I am’ in relation to this point of creation, and how do I know this and where would this knowing itself be? When I have read Descartes’ Meditations, mentally I am in the position of having read Descartes’ Meditations, I am there, with his ideas in my mind. I know where I am — in this place — if I reflect on it. It is not difficult to ascertain — but I have to afford some time to thinking about it, realising it. If I act hastily, if I just pass onto the next thing without pause or consideration, then I may never know where I am. And, if it is to contribute to my future, I must realise now that I am in the position of just having read Descartes’ Meditations, and have listened in my mind to what he said to me. I must realise now that I am wondering about it, dropping it into different slots, different shapes, making pictures of it, puzzling my way through it. This is not the moment of revelation. This is the pause that enables revelation — the silence which precedes. Then, when I sit before the setting sun, I am ready for whatever may happen. Even though I think I may have forgotten my reading of Descartes’ Meditations at this time, or do not consciously carry it in my mind, I have allowed what he has told me to become lodged, in some way, in my mind — I have allowed myself to absorb it. Only if I allow this to happen will I be ready for anything creative to happen. If I am ‘empty’ — have taken nothing in — then I cannot have a revelation. The expression ‘empty your mind’ is misleading, it does not mean ‘remove’ things from your mind, it really means ‘calm yourself’, ‘give pause’, so that all that is in your mind can form into whatever pattern is needed for the future. These patterns will emerge in some way at a ‘point of creative impact’ — I realise the sun, not because I have simply seen it and know its debt to my perception of it but because I have something in me which enables realisation. If I was ‘empty’ in my mind, I would simply stare at the sun.

Rationality, therefore, leads to me to the point of, or supports me in the credibility of, my revelation: my mind absorbs Descartes’ Meditations in a rational way and so prepares me to have something revealed; my revelation fits with things which I have come to know rationally.

When I stare at the sun, things are working in my mind. I may have a clear and peaceful mind, but still my mind works. My state of clarity and peace simply allows fewer distracting elements to surface. Maybe the idea of consciousness, or of being, comes to the fore, and maybe such thoughts are sufficient to prepare the way for ‘creative impact’. Whatever these distilled thoughts may be, they are previously thought out (or thought of) elements which have, in some sense, coherent, rational appeal. That coherent, rational appeal may have been abbreviate and summarised but it remains as the under layer. If I stared at the sun, and all that was in my mind was breakfast, I would be surprised to have a revelation about meaning. It may happen, but if it did the revelation may feel ‘internally’ less convincing, and that would be so even if I did not realise the source. Later, as I started to think about the revelation and discovered the connection — breakfast — I might begin to doubt its veracity. It may be that background thoughts on breakfast can lead to a revelation about meaning, but I will feel more secure in my revelation if I felt the background thoughts had some more obvious connection to meaning. If I can find ‘meaning connections’ to thoughts of breakfast then this might do, I might be rationally satisfied, my belief may be sufficiently be reinforced by reason, but it is less likely. If my revelation is to have meaning to me, then I must be prepared to choose and take action. If I am to take action, then I must believe in my revelation. I am unlikely to freely take action if I am supported only by a belief of which I am suspicious.

My revelation needs to fit with things which I have come to know rationally. If I stare at the sun and realise my being in relation to it, and feel transformed, then that transformation needs to ‘fit’. If I can lay my transformation against my reading of Descartes’ Meditations, it gives it rational coherence. Transformational insights are not immune from the need from justification at some point: we may need to argue for them with ourselves, or for them with others, or we may need to justify our actions to ourselves or others. To feel comfortable, we need a ‘linkage of sense’, a trail, a coherence, that runs back from the revelation to something which anchors it. St. Paul’s revelation made sense in respect of his life as Saul — it had linkage, sense, there was a trail, the trail was rationally coherent and because of that the fit was rationally coherent.

But, in our search for meaning, freedom to choose, action and how we should act, rationality will only take us so far. Rationality will not do the whole job. If it did then we would have no use for revelational inner transformation and it is clear that inner transformation plays a vital role in our ability to create. Rationality is an ingredient, an essential ingredient, but still only an ingredient. I will not have my revelation about being unless I know something of it — my knowledge may not be exhaustive, but I need something to ‘hang’ onto. My mind will not operate as an empty vessel. I cannot cook a meal by staring at empty saucepans, at unopened packages, or vegetables still in the ground. I have to take some steps and they must be coherent. If they are not coherent then the product will not fit, will make no sense and will always be liable to summary dismissal — ‘I had an incredible realisation about meaning, but it made no sense, I could not relate it to anything, make it fit with anything I know; I have decided it was simply a random, phantom thought which has nothing to contribute to my life’. As individuals, we are coherence-orientated, we are rational things. Consciousness works in a rational sequence — from before to after — there is no escaping it. Doing something random, wild, illogical, irrational, can sometimes be refreshing or challenging, but only because it is in conflict with our imperative to be rational. But clearly rational processes do not complete the picture, they merely place us at the chopping board, allow us to light the stove. We may have a rational imperative because of our placement in time, and our drive to survive, but that does not mean that rationality is our only mental quality nor that it can usefully act alone. It is a basic framework, we use it to give credibility to the next step, and the next step is ours alone — we must create. Creation is not some magical element which sits at the opposite corner to rationality. There is no contest between the two, quite the contrary — creativity needs rationality. Without rationality, creation is meaningless and random. Rationality physically brings me to staring at the sun. How else could I find myself there? Rationality allows me to read Descartes’ Meditations. Rationality allows me to be calm, to pause, and it allows me to have in the background my terms, reference points, inspirations, hopes etc.. When the creative trigger occurs, that ‘moment’, that ‘unexplainable, rapid occurrence’ of revelation occurs, then that ‘moment’ sits against something, is in a perspective (for that time space, subliminal or not). Coherence is our background, our air if you like, our perspective, our guarantee, our fall-back, our system. Creation is what we do which is exclusively us, exclusively being, exclusively the act of us as an individual. And it is an act always against the background of our own coherence, breathing our own air, relying on our common system. In this way, coherence and creativity sum us up — individuals, marvellously isolated and alone, compelled to seek connection with a mysterious and wonderful world.

Fourth Thought
I am unsatisfied with Socratic dialogue – I am not convinced by the slave boy’s discovery of knowledge and yet I see what Plato is trying to convey. This idea of ‘prizing’ out existing knowledge seems, intriguingly, both to have value and to be valueless. Valueless in that it is unconvincing in the hands of Socrates, of value in that it points to the idea that there is ‘something’ which can be ‘brought into mind’. It is this ‘bringing into mind’ which is of great interest when we think of creative revelation. Is revelation a bringing into mind? If it is, then it is not creative, simply recollective, and this is how Plato would have it. On the other hand, if creative revelation is not a ‘bringing into mind’ but something which appears to our mind which is novel, then it is not recollective but original – a new thought in its own right. This is not as Plato would have it, it is not part of a ‘Socratic dialogue’ method and exposes a problem which, on the face of it, is unanswerable – how does something emerge from nothing?

What is the connection between revelation and creativity? ‘Revelation’ is the point of recognition, of seeing, of ‘having revealed’ maybe. But it also connotes the idea of something becoming known which is important, transcending, life-changing. We do not have revelations which take us backwards so to speak – we are not less enlightened by revelation.

Creativity is not simply ‘invention of the mind’. Invention is often a new way of doing something, a different approach. All our acts are to an extent inventive, even if habitual they take part in a new space-time position. Creativity is what the individual does that only that individual can do. In one way, this is everything the individual does, but this is a weak sense of creativity. Some individuals never truly create. We need to know that we have created just as much as that we have created at all.

Everything is rationally coherent – simply unexplainable – this applies to a work of art or a perception of chaos. Things will not ‘hold together’ without coherence – we have simply to accept it. Anything I say, think, appreciate, acknowledge etc., must have rational coherence, rational appeal. If I say I think ‘xmtz xvw?x’, I would say in linguistic terms this is nonsense. However, as a set of letters this forms as writing, the product of my mind, the formation of sets of individual letters I know, even though together in sets they mean nothing to me, they have rational coherence. I cannot think gobbledegook without appreciating the coherence implicit in it – witness Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

A rational linkage must lie behind any revelation. I think in words, in pictures, I use images – these are all part of a coherent framework. Everything I know, for example even an hallucination, is part of a coherent framework. I may hallucinate a huge ship floating in the sky, but it still resembles a ship and its inappropriate (unnatural) placement in space-time only reveals its natural coherence. There seems no escaping this.

I get stuck on the rational and the mystic. There is something in my mind that tells me always that even the mystic is rational. If God intervenes, this is a rational act. If I have a strange and incomprehensible insight into what is ‘true’ knowledge, then it is still rational – every element of it. But it is like the distinction one can make about meaning of life and meaning of my life: life may be meaningless but my life is not. My mystic insight may be rationally coherent, but to me it is as mystic-as-it-can-get. This does not mean to say it is some sort of lower class mysticism, it is not, it is full-blown mysticism – it is just that, somewhere beyond our experience, mysticism is rationally coherent, and that’s okay.

For me, the creative occurs (I must answer how the occurrence happens and what it constitutes) from or inside me, yes, and this could be a sort of bubble, but a bubble is like a gift, it has a religio/mystic feel, something from God, a package of knowing. Can I accept that? Not easily. I think we are, as individuals, absolutely special. Our place in the conscious matrix is assured and is particular. Our creative act will be what we do, inspired, perhaps even by a bubble, but the point of creation is doing. If bubbles rise from the abyss, then there is an abyss and there is ‘rising’. If the abyss is dark and unknown it is clearly coherent. The bubble arises (presumably) through these waters and, crucially, into my consciousness. The metaphor will not work for me. I must tackle this and see what’s wrong here.

The bubble metaphor is rationally coherent. It implies a place, a package and contents which are unpackaged when the bubble reaches my mind. Am I content with this? No. This is too much like manna. I want, and believe, creativity to be from me, not from somewhere else. It has to have rational appeal to make sense and be believable, but it is still from me, from within me. I can feel it no other way. Also, this invites me to think that if I tune into it then I will make myself receptive to bubbles. I’m not so sure that meditation in any sense leads to revelation. I think revelation is alive, active thing, not a ponderous, making-myself-open-to thing. Again, of course peace, silence, ability to reflect, something to reflect on, a sense of openness, welcoming, will all make us conducive but they are not necessary. It is not black or white – individual life is relatively rule-free grey.

Now, if by mysticism we mean insight, then I am more at ease. Insight can occur suddenly, on the bus, in church, on the open sea, and it may have revelationary quality. It may have been caused by the physical situation or the state of mind, bu it was not brought about by being purposefully ‘conducive to receive’ (a bubble) but by being able to do – to do insight. When the insight happened, I was engaged with myself, using my own mind, thinking, then suddenly – impact – I have an insight, I look at it quickly and I have a revelation, we feed that in and we are transformed. Okay, this is psychological to an extent. Let me try again.

To see this as a bubble is confusing. The bubble comes from somewhere (God or heaven maybe), and we must think that there are lots of other bubbles there waiting to arrive. This place is a place of bubbles, a place of great knowledge or insight potential. The idea that this place is a place ‘beyond ourselves’ is again very entrancing – if we could just get away from our normal life and get into the world of bubbles then everything would be wonderful. Escape from Plato’s cave does not, I think, mean anything like this. Plato is inviting us to think that the world is truly not as it appears to be – that is all. The place of bubbles is, fr me, too much like the world of forms, and I don’t think the world of forms is where the world really is, rather it is a perfect representation of all the things in the world. Platonic transcendence might naturally lead us into the idea of working our way towards this world but, in all honesty, would anyone truly like to exist in such a place? Let’s try and see how the insight can occur. I will try and work through it using examples.

On a tram. I am sitting on a tram near the Mexican border. It is hot. Opposite me, a young girl sits close to her corpulent mother. She pushes herself under her mother’s fat arms and smiles at me. It is a nervous but becoming smile. The mother nods and turns to stroke the girl’s forehead. Suddenly, I realise motherhood. I see that everyone has a mother, that having a mother is a peculiar bond, that it is naturally loving, protective, that something flows between mother and child, and so something flows between all individuals, there is something which is not constrained by our natural isolation and I see that love is what flows, and the child’s smile and the mother’s caress flows to me and I am their child, the child of the child and the child of the mother and I realise the harmony of it all, the perfect nature of it all, and I am filled with it and I look around for others to love, and I look back again and it is still happening, and I can hardly bear it, it is too much, too much for the individual, too much to contain within isolation. It is all to do with how we fit together, how we belong to each other in all relative ways, and I see the child’s face again, and again she smiles, and it fixes in my mind, and I feel myself changing. My stomach fills with nerves because I know I cannot explain what is going on. I try to distill it, put it into order, and I realise that it will not be rationalised, it is too much, I will only be able to retain part of it, an image maybe, a shape, a smile, a caress, something to remind me, to stimulate my memory, and I relax a bit, allow it to go, I have an insight, it is inside me, and I am changed, and the mother gets up, stretches out her hand. I shake her hand, rather embarrassed, and the young girl bows low. They both leave and I shiver with excitement. The world has opened up something new. I have seen that some of the shadow images are not self-animating puppets but are being operated. There is a force within the world which can be seen, it is available, it is not ‘beyond’ so much, as there to be seen if we see, look, perceive. I stare through the tram window. I know I will never be the same again. I have had a revelation.

In a café. I am sitting in the glass-sided café on the top floor of a large, city department store. I am drinking hot water, sitting alone. The café is busy. I watch the people around me: young women with small children, older couples, single people – using laptops, reading papers, drinking frothy coffee. I feel relaxed, there is no threat. I stare at some of the people. All look away. One barely suppresses a nervous half-smile. There are clattering noises of cutlery, plates, people eat – too much mostly. I think of a book I read many years ago, The Hungry Dwarves? The clatter gets less, people’s movements slow. I realise that these changes are my perception, not a true change of noise level or pace. It gets quieter. I sip my hot water. I feel happy. I realise I feel happier than I did a few minutes ago. What is happening? A great sense of peace comes over me. I am unprepared for this but it happens. I look around at the people again. Everything is clearer. There seems more space between objects. A young woman pushes behind me and says, ‘Sorry’. I say, ‘That’s OK’. A surge of feeling – a sort of undirected excitement – comes over me. I feel ‘connected’. I am sitting now with all around me. The clumsy push and mannered apology have broken my isolation. I realise how close we all are – me and the other objects of the world. How easy it is to be connected. How ridiculous our view of isolation. How false the appearance of isolation. Of course we are separate, but with a clumsy push and an apology I sense with ease that we can be together. Love surges through me and I realise that something permanent has happened. I know something I did not. The world has dropped its guard for a moment, and I have slipped in closer. In sensing this movement, I also sense that our movement is always towards that which is closer. If we are open, available, if there is space, then only ‘closer’ things can happen. I do not want to embrace everyone, or shout out loud what is happening, I feel content knowing how close I can be, how much potential is locked up in our apparent isolation. I sip my warm water and someone smiles at me. I stare back and drift behind their eyes. It is a moment of pure love. I am transformed.

I take what I call the ‘Miss Marple’ view – looking toward the simple for signs of reality (that is, ‘beyond appearance’). The idea of God-given wisdom being passed down by divine-inspired writers is difficult for me. Why should that be so? I don’t see God as having a direct effect on our lives, I suppose. God, for me, is part of the meaning-of-life-in-itself which is not what, as an individual human, I am interested in – I am interested in my life.

I think of St Augustine’s Confessions, his first reading of Cicero’s Hortensius: ‘it altered my outlook on life. It changed my prayers to you, O Lord, and provided me with new hopes and aspirations. All my empty dreams suddenly lost their charm and my heart began to throb with a bewildering passion for the wisdom of eternal truth. I began to climb out of the depths to which I had sunk, in order to return to you.’.

I think also of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, ‘And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier’. Whitman says that all the dead are alive and well somewhere, and that it is just as lucky to die as to be born. Or does he? I am not sure. I look at the poem, and study the lines, and I am confused, and some things become clearer, and they are a poet’s words, an expression of his own inspiration, and they go further than most, than me, and I strive to fix on the meaning, hoping that it can have the same meaning for me. But slowly, as I begin to see the meaning – though still some of it is obscure – I realise the ‘meaning’ is not truly conveyed, it can only be a meaning for one, the method is too mechanistic, there is truly no space in the words. Everything is too dense. There is no room for me. Nothing can come in from the side. Would I be lucky enough to realise exactly the same meaning in exactly the same way? Is that level of identity necessary? Is it not good enough to say: ‘I see what he means’, ‘I have never thought of it that way’, or ‘Never thought of that’, or ‘This is new to me’, or ‘This has opened up something that has never opened before’. Yes, it might, but all I am doing is appreciating – understanding. Understanding more, someone else, something I didn’t understand before, something which is new to me. ‘Understanding’ is not what I am searching for. True, it may ‘transform’ me (in a weak sense, I think), in that I was and then am, but this is not true, strong inner transformation. This I need to find within me. It must be more than understanding. It must be creative, rich, and it must be dynamic, alive, born of action, the world, another, the fabric of consciousness – it must be heroic, the outcome of struggle, the outcome of the silence within the chaos, the peace available within the noise of the maelstrom. It must be carried on the wave of love that passes between me and that of which I am conscious. It must stem from that certainty, that reality – without that, it has no basis, no sense, no appeal, no coherence. Without that, it is weak, not senseless but not with the sense which is truly available. We can know to the limits of what we can know, and it stems from, is drawn out of, bursts from within, the act of being. Calm-in-itself is a falsehood – we should not seek it. The calm seeks us because it is part of the nature of consciousness – but it is not its best part, or fundamental part. Calmness may precede enlightenment but it occurs, like the final piece of the dying man, amid the surge and terror of all that beholds us and which we behold.

Yearning? Do I yearn? Yes, I do, but for that which is unattainable. I yearn for permanence, permanent states, and they do not exist, and my life is unsettled because it is always in flux and I want something that endures. I make an advantage out of the dis-benefit, but it is always an apology. I yearn for endurance in a world of impermanence. Love is the only hope, contact, intimacy, looking behind the eyes, seeing who is there, being welcomed in, but it has inherent corruption – it will all fail.

Note
Ran Lahav refers to ‘Bubbles’ as a way of describing insights.