THE LOVE TESTAMENT

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=210 BGCOLOR="#99CC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="2758dfc3.jpg"> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index_anchor_6.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="THE CONSCIOUS TRANSFORMATION: Proof of C"><U><B>The Movement</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B>THE CONSCIOUS TRANSFORMATION</B></div> <bR> <div> <B> </B><A HREF="id64_intro.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" TO WHICH WE BELONG"><U><B>Introduction</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>TO WHICH WE BELONG</B></div> <div>  [A Rallying Pamphket] </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id26_m.htm#ht_1" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U><B>The New Wisdom</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>HUMAN-TRANSCENDENCE</B></div> <div> <B>An Integrated Love Wisdom</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="http://www.studiesinmeaning.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.studiesinmeaning.com"><U><B>The New Education</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>STUDIES IN MEANING</B></div> <div> <B>A Critcal-Creative Thinking Curriculum</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id11_coming_together_1.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="THE PUBLIC BENEFIT"><U><B>The New Society</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> THE PUBLIC BENEFIT</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id58_the_goodwill_culture_1_1.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="THE GOODWILL CULTURE"><U><B>The Goodwill Culture</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>CULTURAL GOODWILL</B></div> <div> <B>-------------</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id10_wisdom_enquiries_1.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="WISDOM ENQUIRIES"><U><B>The Wisdom Enquiries</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>EXPLORING OUR HUMAN-TRANSCENDENCE</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id12_transition_is_a_monthly_publication.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TRANSITION"><U><B>The E-Newsmagazine</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>TRANSITION</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id5_the_messenger.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="LOVE AND THE MAN: John Lennon"><U><B>The Messenger</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>OF LOVE & THE MAN</B></div> <div> <B>John Lennon</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK CATALOG"><U><B>BOOK CATALOG</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FOR PARTICIPANTS"><U><B>FOR PARTICIPANTS</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id37_e_mail_exchange_postings.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EMAIL EXCHANGE"><U><B>E-MAIL EXCHANGE</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id37_e_mail_exchange_postings.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EMAIL EXCHANGE"><U><B>(Postings)</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id43.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PICTURES OF EMINENT PERSONS"><U><B>PICTURES OF EMINENT PERSONS</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FOUNDERS PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND "><U><B>FOUNDERS' PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="CONTACT US"><U><B>Contact Us</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>          </B></div> </td> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=82 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="2768dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <B>The Conscious Transformation     </B></div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=398 colspan=2 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="2768dfc3.jpg"> <div> <B>   </B></div> <div> <B> <A NAME="ht_1"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="2b8bffe0.gif" border=0 width="191" height="254" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>HUMAN-TRANSCENDENCE</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>By</B></div> <div> <B>Joseph Sguigna</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>CONTENTS</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="204" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 42 ><NOBR><div> <B>BOOK ONE</B></div> <div> <B>A Contemplative Person</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>PART 1: Human-Transcendence as an integrated Love-Wisdom</B></div> <div> Preface</div> <div> <A HREF="#introductory_notes_1" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>Introductory Notes</U></A></div> <div>   I: <A HREF="#spontaneous_thoughts_on_wisdom" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>Spontaneous Thoughts on Wisdom</U></A></div> <div>  II. <A HREF="#the_wisdom_of" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>A Human-Transcendent Wisdom</U></A></div> <div> III. <A HREF="#ii_the_psychology_of_humanness" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>The Psychology of Humanness</U></A></div> <div> IV. <A HREF="#iii_the_philosophy_of_transcendence" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>The Philosophy of Transcendence</U></A></div> <div> V. <A HREF="#a_postscript" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>A POSTSCRIPT: Human-Transcendence as a Wisdom of Insecurity</U></A></div> <div> <B>PART 2: Human-Transcendence as Love</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#human_transcendence_as_love" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>TRANSCENDENT LOVE</U></A></div> <div> [Our Transcendence]</div> <div> HUMAN LOVE</div> <div> [Our Humanness]</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Self-love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Erotic Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Vital Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Nihilistic Love</div> <div> HUMAN-TRANSCENDENT LOVE</div> <div> [Our Human-Transcendence]</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Humanistic Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Ideal Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Selfless Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Mystic Love</div> <div> <B>PART 3: The Philosophy of Love</B></div> <div>   I:  Love as Essential Being </div> <div>  II.  Love as the God Within</div> <div> III:  The Love Testament</div> <div> IV: Perspectives of Love</div> <div> V. Unto Self-Freedom</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="151" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 42 ><NOBR><div> <B>BOOK TWO</B></div> <div> <B>Eminent Persons</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <B>PART 1: An Overview of Wisdom In Relation to Human-Transcendence</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#70" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>Forward</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#73" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>Introductory Notes</U></A></div> <div> 1.<A HREF="#72" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U> Some Contemporary Views on Wisdom</U></A></div> <div> 2.<A HREF="#74" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U> The Nature of Wisdom</U></A></div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">  Classical Views</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">  Modern Views</div> <div> 3. <A HREF="#75" TITLE="THE LOVE TESTAMENT"><U>The Way of Wisdom</U></A></div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">  Classical Views</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">  Modern Views</div> <div> <B>PART 2: Human-Transcendence as Love</B></div> <div> TRANSCENDENT LOVE</div> <div> [Our Transcendence]</div> <div> HUMAN LOVE</div> <div> [Our Humanness]</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Self-love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Erotic Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Vital Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Nihilistic Love</div> <div> HUMAN-TRANSCENDENT LOVE</div> <div> [Our Human-Transcendence]</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Humanistic Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Ideal Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Selfless Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Mystic Love</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="182" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 42 ><NOBR><div> <B>BOOK THREE</B></div> <div> <B>Perceptive Persons</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <B>PART 1: </B><B>Wisdom Perspectives in Relation to Human-Transcencence</B></div> <div> <B>PART 2: Human-Transcendence as Love</B></div> <div> TRANSCENDENT LOVE</div> <div> [Our Transcendence]</div> <div> HUMAN LOVE</div> <div> [Our Humanness]</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Self-love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Erotic Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Vital Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Nihilistic Love</div> <div> HUMAN-TRANSCENDENT LOVE</div> <div> [Our Human-Transcendence]</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Humanistic Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Ideal Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Selfless Love</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Mystic Love</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>BOOK ONE</B></div> <div> <B>A Contemplative Person</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>HUMAN-TRANSCENDENCE</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="introductory_notes_1"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Introductory Notes</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>1</B></div> <bR> <div> A conscious transformation is underway! <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> a transformation through a <I>human-transcendent wisdom</I> leading to the ascendancy of justice and wisdom.</div> <div> As our nature is both human and transcendent (flesh and spirit, self and soul, so to speak), each pitted one <I>against </I>the other, as it always seems, this human-transcendent wisdom resolves this age-old conflict by having these two "antagonists" balanced into a harmonious wisdom - hence a conscious transformation.</div> <div> Underlying this wisdom is the unifying bond, or power, of Love that holds all things together in their proper place; so that rather than our humanness <I>repelling</I> our transcendence, and vice versa, each <I>attract</I>s one another in the right proportion, or tension, relative to the individual. </div> <div> This human-transcendent transformation, then, has its accompanying human-transcendent wisdom as its guide, and Love [as the <I>bond </I>of unity] <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> (or Love, with a capital 'L') as its source.</div> <div> <I>Human-Transcendence</I> covers a wide range of human, transcendent, and human-transcendent observations of our complex humanity  moral and spiritual idealism, evil, our vulnerabilities, our various moods and inclinations, our frailties, our inner and outer conflicts, our insecurities, and so on.</div> <div> By pinpointing the array of our human complexities, this work helps us become acutely - not just vaguely <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> aware, and accepting of, the limitations of our humanness, the limitlessness and uplift of our transcendence, and the possibilities and refinements of our human-transcendence.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>2</B></div> <div> What is this conscious transformation in regards to <I>wisdom</I>?</div> <div> It is an expanding self-understanding that comes through a wisdom that balances our humanness with our transcendence. This wisdom plumbs the <U>psychological </U>essentials of our humanness in relation to the <U>philosophical </U>essentials of our transcendence. Both these essentials originate from the <I>source </I>of wisdom; namely, Love [as the <I>bond </I>of all unity].</div> <div> Transcendently speaking, we identify this <I>bond </I>of unity as the <I><B>Meaning </B></I>of unity, as an undivided, unmanifested whole: the oneness underlying all things, all reality. Spiritually speaking, we identify this <I>bond </I>of unity <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> Love <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> this meaning, this oneness, as God, or the Godhead, to be more precise.</div> <div> And since each of us <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> not to mention "things" <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> is an individual unity-complex, there is this aforementioned underlying bond that unifies us into this particular being, interrelatedly part by part, so to speak. Hence we have our individual <I>meaning </I>in the scheme of things, are essentially Love, and so of <I>oneness. </I>Accordingly, in this sense, of Love, we are essentially God, are essentially the Godhead. And so, God is within us as It is within everything, unifying all being into infinite relationships. </div> <div> This "God within" paradigm is the cornerstone of the conscious transformation of which I speak; since it is the foremost living truth of our being <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT>: that we are essentially the meaning, oneness, love, of all being. "God is love," as it has been handed down to us from all time and from all climes. And as God is love, so is love God.</div> <div> These grand statements, of course, have to be demonstrated as believable <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>hopefully <I>true </I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> beyond just words, however philosophically, poetically, even scientifically, convincingly stated. And the closest we can get to that truth is to experience Love and its results. It is a simple enough matter to experience and witness acts of love in our everyday lives. These, however, do not transport us to the ultimate oneness, the bond, of Love. Yet there is the experience of that ultimate oneness known as the mystic experience. Perhaps we have all experienced, momentarily, at least, that oneness to one degree or another. If we were to read of this ultimate experience from authoritative sources from all time and from all places, we would become more familiar with its reality; and so perhaps be convinced of that reality as being Love, God, Power; as being ourselves too as that Love, God, Power, even though we may not have experienced it.</div> <div> Having set down this evidence, the next stage would be to introduce the reader to the wisdom of this God- within reality; from which stage would follow the source of this wisdom, being Love.</div> <div> As a person gains this wisdom, that is, attains self-understanding, he becomes more receptive and sensitive to the truths, the Meaning, of human nature and of essential nature: Love.</div> <div> This conscious transformation happens through the contemplation and practice of these truths.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="spontaneous_thoughts_on_wisdom"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Spontaneous Thoughts on Wisdom</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div>   1.  Let Wisdom be my mistress, as I am male; my master; as I am female.</div> <div>   2.  With Wisdom by my side, I soften my defenses, I drop my shield.</div> <div>   3.  Wisdom is the passageway through which I meet myself as love.</div> <div>   4.  It is a joyful wisdom we want; not a somber, severe, austere wisdom.</div> <div>   5.  Wisdom is our transcendence in thought, feeling, and action.</div> <div>   6.  Wisdom is the image of eternity.</div> <div>   7.  Trying to capture the quick of Wisdom would be like trying to seize a shooting star.</div> <div>   8.  Wisdom is as effervescent as a breeze wafting through our mind; yet more real than our breath.</div> <div>   9.  After all the words used to try to capture the meaning of Wisdom, it nonetheless remains ever ineffably a conundrum.</div> <div> 10.  Wisdom makes us wise in action (in practical matters) and deep in thought (in contemplative matters). How? By imparting to us truths of life and Truth in Love.</div> <div> 11.  Our destiny lies in the folds of Wisdom of which we have only intimations.</div> <div> 12.  Through Wisdom do we sense our essentiality.</div> <div> 13.  Wisdom is nowhere somewhere in our conscious being.</div> <div> 14.  Wisdom is God (Pure Being) actualized.</div> <div> 15.  What Wisdom means is beyond our ken but “within” our being.</div> <div> 16.  Wisdom is the medium through which eternal truths issue.</div> <div> 17.  Think of Wisdom as the key to our eternal nature.</div> <div> 18.  Think of Wisdom as the messenger of eternal truths.</div> <div> 19.  Wisdom is sure to beautify herself in our minds so that we are drawn to her in sweet desire.</div> <div> 20.  Wisdom sets forth its ideals in our minds so that we aspire to them however unattainably.</div> <div> 21.  Wisdom abides in the eternity of Truth as One, and shares this truth with man in living concepts.</div> <div> 22.  Wisdom is so inherent to eternal Truth that those who live only for life's truths have little share in her bounty - though they are offered to them.</div> <div> 23.  As there is a method to madness, so there is a share of wisdom in ignorance <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> though we may never grasp this truth.</div> <div> 24.  Wisdom shares her secrets to those who, not only are receptive to them, but who love them. One such secret: that there are no problems, only solutions; another such secret: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans; one more such secret: Love is all you need. You might recognize these secrets in Lennon's songs.</div> <div> 25.  Wisdom is everywhere to her self, but nowhere to us; just as our mind is nowhere to be found (perceived) yet everywhere in thought.</div> <div> 26.  Now Wisdom is here, then its gone; now your sure of it, then unsure; now in its bosom, then in the cold, now in possession of its treasures then barren of them.</div> <div> 27.  When you act wisely, you act in love; since love holds everything together in its place and order <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> even when it separates in strife; for is not everything bound in relationship one to the next, one to everything however far apart?</div> <div> 28.  Through good (morally and deliberatively) judgment, the disciple of wisdom measures (i.e. judges, determines) the proper distance between persons in harmony or in strife.</div> <div> 29.  The disciple of wisdom deciphers well good from evil, the soft-natured from the hard-natured, and acts accordingly; that is, measures correctly the distance between the two in persons through sound judgment regardless of the consequences.</div> <div> 30.  Acting in wisdom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> with good deliberation, good judgment, with understanding of the full truth of the situation.</div> <div> 31.  He acts <B>in</B> wisdom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> is at one with the Source, the Essence, of universal Truth, eternal Oneness: Love.</div> <div> 32.  He acts <B>through </B>wisdom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> He lives in, for, and by, the inspiration of Wisdom.</div> <div> 33.  Wisdom is your wisdom; you just have to find it in yourself, listen for it, be receptive to it.</div> <div> 34.  Perhaps your errors, your wrongs, are as much a part of the wisdom of the whole scheme of things, as are your accuracies, your  rights.</div> <div> 35.  Be wise in your folly <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> meaning: be the fool at times but know when you are, and when to desist.</div> <div> 36.  Sensuous beauty ensnares us all, but Wisdom's beauty frees us in peace through Love.</div> <div> 37.  Project Wisdom in your mind as your Friend <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> your Jesus (or Buddha, or Krishna, if you will) <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>your mysterious Presence that is every rapping at your inner door, however silently it may be, however you may ignore it.</div> <div> 38.  Wisdom is your vital lifeline to your Eternal Oneness, your Unity.</div> <div> 39.  Now and then wisdom does more than guide you through life <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> it infuses you with its bliss.</div> <div> 40.  You might think of wisdom as the “Son of God” who imparts the WORD to our minds from the Godhead.</div> <div> 41.  Jesus as the WORD <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> or just as well Buddha, or Krishna, or Ramakrishna. This WORD gives us as Wisdom through which we live wisely in love and die eternally in Bliss-Oneness.</div> <div> 42.  Rest your mind in the calm and still of Wisdom's presence.</div> <div> 43.  Wisdom is her name; beauty is her image; truth is her way, and love her essence.</div> <div> 44.  Wisdom is the name we give to that which inspires us to our transcendence.</div> <div> 45.  Wisdom is part human and all divine.</div> <div> 46.  Wisdom is not something we attain <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> how can we attain what we already have?; it is wisdom in thought and action that we attain.</div> <div> 47.  Wisdom is Love's emissary; it is our divine spark that ignites true vision through intuition.</div> <div> 48.  Through the channel of intuition our reason structures the world for us.</div> <div> 49.  Wisdom attunes us to the chords and discords of life in love and strife.</div> <div> 50.  <B>A</B>: Your so-called Wisdom as some kind of spiritual essence seems to me to be no more than a chimera, an illusion, if not a delusion.</div> <div>        <B>B</B>: Do you know that for certain?</div> <div>        <B>A</B>: Well, I don't suppose anything human is certain. I don't deny right out the spirituality (or pureness) of being; but my objection is your spiritualizing wisdom which has to do with rational thought dealing with contingent, practical, and necessary truths. Why are you turning it into some kind of deity?</div> <div>      <B>  B</B>: Not a deity <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> a divinity; there's a difference.</div> <div>        <B>A</B>: Which is?</div> <div>      <B>  B</B>: The difference between conceptualizing God as pure Being and God as divinity. We conceive of God as Being; we intuit God as divinity. Our concept of God as Being is limited to our rational nature; that is, we're not able to verify it. And so, we can never know if this concept is based on reality. And so, our concept of God as Being can never really effect our lives emotionally, deeply, except on faith or illusion, as you call it. On the other hand, our intuition of God (Essence) as divine does affect us emotionally, because it somehow inspires us to act and think rightly in accord with the truths of life <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and the Truth of Being, as we conceive of it; however wrong we may be about this conception.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>: Then you admit that you might be under an illusion that God is pure Being.</div> <div>       <B>B</B>: Yes; I've said as much.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>: And that it is possible that there is no such thing as God as Pure Being?</div> <div>     <B>  B</B>: True.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>: In which case, there would be no so-called Wisdom emanating from some  so-called Pure Being?</div> <div>       <B>B</B>: That follows simply enough.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>:  Then that would leave wisdom meaning simply acting with good judgment about particular and universal truths about life and nature.</div> <div>       <B>B</B>:  Agreed.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>:  Then why, in any sense of the word, would you consider wisdom as  </div> <div>  divine?</div> <div>       <B>B</B>:  Because of the wonder of it all! <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> of the mystery of all these truths in life and in nature. I remember reading on a plague somewhere “Wisdom begins with wonder.” And when we wonder, we stand in awe of what we can- not understand; but which moves us inexplicably in sublime transports of ineffable joy. This mysterious faculty that sparks wonder in us and inspires us to explore and enquire and create artistically, scientifically, philosophically, psychologically, is what I consider as divine. And yes, we may very well be mistaken in our various interpretations of this divine element in us; but we are not mistaken that it makes its presence known to us. And when it further inspires us to act rightly in love, then I know all the more that it is divine by the harmony love tends to fuse people together in unity <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>in an affectionate bond of compas- sionate unity, as I call it. And if it is an illusion, something our minds have concocted to preserve our species from extinction, and nothing more-then even that stark reality is divine so far as I'm concerned. And because it is what we term “wisdom” that synapses, so to speak, the living truths of reality, then It, in my estimation, is my divine counterpart; and I treasure It as my spark of divinity.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>:  Well that fairly much puts my argument to rest.</div> <div>       <B>B</B>:  That sounds ambiguous. To rest in what sense: you are convinced, or you are exasperated.</div> <div>       <B>A</B>:  The former. Though I would like to know more about love in its relationship to wisdom. But </div> <div>             another time.</div> <div> 51.  A conundrum of wisdom: Because of love people hate; because of justice people commit injustices --</div> <div>  which is to say, because of good, evil exists.</div> <div> 52.  And when all else turns against you - because of you or because of others <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> you have the solace, the comfort, the strength, to carry on with your beloved Wisdom who is with you regardless; since it is she and her cohort, God, who set all this life “business” up in the first place. So rather than be a mere pawn to this often sordid, absurd business of human life, join forces, hold hands, with the perpetrators of it all: God and its handwork, Wisdom. This is not so pretty a picture of Wisdom, as I have so far set it forth.</div> <div> 53. It's hard to hold on to an abstraction, such as, Wisdom, however dear it is to us, when the furies of life engulf us, make their onslaught upon us.</div> <div> 54.  Let Wisdom accompany you wherever you go, whatever you do.</div> <div> 55.  Wisdom can save you from yourself and from others. Keep the faith!</div> <div> 56.  “I'll do it for Wisdom” <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> No more vows, resolutions, and the like. I'll simply do, or not do it, for my love of wisdom. Now I've got it!</div> <div> 57.  Wisdom, we might say, is the eye of knowledge. </div> <div> 58   Wisdom requires much of us; but it gives much, too <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> much more than it requires in the end.</div> <div> 59.  With Wisdom as our constant companion, we have a personal transcendent purpose to refine ourselves as never before: our beauteous Wisdom.</div> <div> 60.  Wisdom is imbued with Love.</div> <div> 61   Wisdom is what gives meaning to Love</div> <div> 62   Wisdom is the human expression of Meaning.</div> <div> 63   Meaning is the "why" of Love.</div> <div> 64  To say that a person is wise is to mean that he or she lives the Meaning of Love.</div> <div> 65   Look at Meaning in this light: meaning as we use it in daily discourse <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> the meaning of a word, the meaning our life, and so forth,  is the emanation of the Meaning of everything. In which case, the meaning of a word - any word in any language <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> is the Meaning of all words; the meaning of our life is the Meaning of life itself.</div> <div> 66   Intuition is the wisdom of our species; and the wisdom of our species is the Meaning of our species. - the Meaning we can never know as a species.</div> <div> 67   Wisdom speaks of Meaning; that is to say: wisdom is the <I>word</I> of Meaning.</div> <div> 68   When we act in, for, love, we act with wisdom; and when we act with wisdom, we are in touch with the Meaning of that wisdom, the Meaning of that act of love.</div> <div> 69  Our feelings (emotions, passions, etc.) ensue from love, for good or for ill, love of self or of otherwise; and we act according to those feelings. And those feelings have a wisdom of their own <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> "method to our madness." And that wisdom belongs the collective meaning of our humanity.</div> <div> 70   Were we to trace the wisdom of our humanity to its source <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> which we can never do in this life - we would arrive at its ultimate Meaning.</div> <div> 71   All  peak experiences of love, which transcends oneself beyond one's self, are degrees of mystic experiences relative to the range of their intensity and purity.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="the_wisdom_of"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>I: THE WISDOM OF HUMAN-TRANSCENDENCE</B></div> <bR> <div> 1.  A human-transcendence is what we want: a life that is human in its transcendence. </div> <div> 2.  We have our humanness, and we have our transcendence; and from these two, we arrive at a human-transcendence. </div> <div> 3.  Yes, be transcendent, as transcendent as you can be; but hesitate before you seriously deny, judge, condemn, or hate your humanness <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> or anyone else's. </div> <div> 4.  Transcendence can take you from zero to infinity, from here to eternity, beyond good and evil. </div> <div> 5.  A serene calm with transcendence; an agitated tension with humanness. Both profit us in their place, and in balance. </div> <div> 6.  Just as you are human so are you transcendent: temporally human, eternally transcendent.</div> <div> 7.  At each inspiration, at each effort, to control yourself, refine yourself, go beyond yourself; know that a transcendent element is working in you. </div> <div> 8.  Some aspects of our <B>humanness</B>: our need to be needed, to be loved, to belong, to be respected, to be admired, to be secure, to be accepted, to be right, to be appreciated, to be intelligent <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and the whole host of psychological needs that anyone can fill in. Then there are our fears, our insecurities, our moods, our sensuality, our ego, our passions, our lusts, desires, greeds <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and on and on, endlessly it seems; all indicative of our humanness, our all-too-human self. </div> <div> 9.  Some aspects of our <B>transcendence</B>: our sense of beauty; our tendency toward goodness, toward right, toward grace, toward being, toward contemplation, meditation; our impulse to create, to know, to understand, to observe, to reflect, to analyze; our intuitions and visions of universal truths; nirvanic states of pure bliss-light-power; all indicative of our transcendence beyond the categories of self and reason, space and time. </div> <div> 10.  Let your sense of transcendence offset, soothe, the brunt of your humanness. </div> <div> 11. The balance of opposites is the key to freedom:to self-freedom; and human-transcendence is such a balance. </div> <div> 12.  Transcendence saves. </div> <div> 13.  Think transcendently, and you will feel transcendent, you will be transcendent. Through the way of human-transcendence we are neither all-too-human nor more-than-human; we are human in our transcendence and transcendent in our humanness. </div> <div> 14.  Human-transcendence is a mature wisdom of life; for normally those who strive for higher ideals have to pass through a long gestation period before they come to realize that they cannot be totally transcendent, no more than can the realist be totally human. </div> <div> 15.  The way of human-transcendence aims for a guiltless, fearless life. </div> <div> 16.  Be wary that your humanness does not get the better of you <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> nor your transcendence. </div> <div> 17.  Try not to be too hard on yourself; give way to the human in you when need be <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> or desire be <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> at times; relax the tension of effort now and then, but be careful that it doesn't slacken. The human in us tends more toward inertia when it comes to effort . </div> <div> 18.  Human-transcendence: simply the moderate balance between both the human and transcendent in us. </div> <div> 19.  Living this human-transcendence, you do not lose your masculinity, or your femininity; rather, you refine it so that you become more manly than masculine, more womanly than feminine. </div> <div> 20.  The transcendent-humanist delights in diversity, and joys in unity; for he sees diversity as the other side of unity. </div> <div> 21.  The human fascinates; the transcendent awes. </div> <div> 22.  The human-in-us limits us; the transcendent-in-us expands us. </div> <div> 23.  If you must, continue to strive to be transcendent <I>only </I>beyond the all-too-human part of yourself; and finally, if you are human in the full sense of the word, you will come back to your human side, and not make severe, austere demands upon it so much. Having reached this stage of your development, you might then begin to harmonize the two sides of yourself. </div> <div> 24.  Living transcendently human is the many-sided, the full, life amidst the play of opposites. </div> <div> 25.  Before you readily fall into the trap of the excuse, "After all, I'm only human," remember that you are also transcendent; and that part of you makes its demands too. And judgment is on the side of your transcendent self; use it often, and wisely <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> if that's not being redundant. </div> <div> 26.  Human-transcendence is an ideal wisdom grounded in the realities of life.</div> <div> 27.  The transcendent experience is that state of consciousness which goes beyond self-consciousness. </div> <div> 28.  This wisdom of life gives not only the proper due to the Dionysian (sensual, dark) and Apollonian (reason, light) sides of our nature, but it is an endeavor to harmonize the two. It is the all-too-human and the more-than-human way of life; it represents the law of polarity, and acts as a checks and balances of the opposites in life. There is no perfection in this way, only a balance between perfection and imperfection: a balance between ideals and realities. </div> <div> 29.  In this way of life there is little embarrassment or shame at being all-too-human, or regret or remorse for not being more-than-human. </div> <div> 30.  Even those who are not very receptive to transcendence would do well to foster some aspects of their transcendence if only to relieve them from the relentless pull and frustration of their human side. </div> <div> 31.  You have failed yourself transcendently? You are not coming up to your ideals? Fine. Don't despair; your human self wants its way, too, you know; you still have blood coursing through your veins, you know; you still drink, eat, and sleep, and eliminate, and copulate, you know; you still feel warmth and cold, fatigue and irritation, you know; if you examine yourself closely enough, you will see that your pride is still with you, you know. These are all human; so let us not disparage them, please...you know. </div> <div> 32.  Nietzsche's overman <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> a chimera? Not at all! It is a reality if one can come to live the human-transcendent life. </div> <div> 33.  Relax both sides of you; be kind to each other. </div> <div> 34.  In order to accept and love your humanness, you need your transcendence; you cannot pull yourself up by your own human bootstraps, as the saying goes. Your humanness is blinded to itself: it only knows itself, or more correctly, it only is itself. It is your transcendence that loves, that understands, that tries. </div> <div> 35.  Human-transcendence is an ideal philosophy <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> not a philosophy of ideals alone, but an ideal philosophy in the sense that it is an ideal way to live in accordance with one's humanness and transcendence <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT>: that is the ideal to strive for. </div> <div> 36.  How good, how free, it is to once again love your humanness! This truly is the joyful wisdom of which Nietzsche taught...Nietzsche! humanity's prophet of the new man, of the new way, of the new freedom. We are your heirs, dear man, who loved mankind so much that you laid down your sanity for it. You are the true Christ-like figure, the true Christian, not your wax models from churchdom, from Christendom. We owe a vast debt to you, oh, titan of freedom! You are our Prometheus. </div> <div> 37.  Oh, to get to the point of just as soon turning to your humanness as your transcendence without compulsion, without impulse; but with judgment, perspective, understanding, wisdom. </div> <div> 38.  What we need in our age above all is to come to a human-transcendence; and that is the enterprise for generations to come: a wondrous enterprise; a challenging, daring enterprise; the Olympic enterprise <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> if not a terrifying enterprise! </div> <div> 39.  Should you feel superior, or worse, arrogant, in what you believe to be your freedom in human-transcendence, you are sorely mistaken in that freedom, friend; because superiority and arrogance smack solely of the human, not of the transcendent. You're on the wrong track. Try again. </div> <div> 40.  Enjoy your humanness; rejoice in your transcendence; let the one run into the other; for in the balance of both of these two sides of yourself, you are truly, fully human. </div> <div> 41.  At the moment that I am aware that I am human, all-too-human, I am transcendent of my humanness. It is this willing awareness that transcends my self-will. </div> <div> 42.  This human-transcendent wisdom, is surely the best of two worlds: the human and the transcendent. </div> <div> 43.  This human-transcendent wisdom promotes and embraces the love in life; for not only does the adherent love his transcendent self, but his human self as well. And loving these in himself, how could he not love the same in others. In other words, he loves his weaknesses as well as his strengths, his good as well as his bad; and so, he loves his life, and life itself he loves too; and again, loving these, how could he not love the same in others who feel the same <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and even those who do not feel the same. </div> <div> 44.  It takes a long time, if ever, for an idealist not to be embarrassed by his humanness; and just as long for him, her, to relax and modify the quest for perfection. The realists smile wryly, often piteously, at such individuals. </div> <div> 45.  It is the all-too-human element in us which lulls us into submission, resignation, despondency, over misfortune. It is the more-than-human element in us which raises us above misfortune so as to bear, and better deal with, our suffering. </div> <div> 46.  <I><B>Realist.</B></I>  So, how is it with you lately. I haven't seen you for awhile. </div> <div> <I><B>Transhumanist.</B></I>  I'm fine. As a matter of fact, I'm wonderful. I've recently developed a philosophy of life for myself which I call human-transcendence. Realist. Mmm, interesting. Tell me about it.Transcendent-humanist. Well, it's freed me to be myself, not only as a human being, but as a transcendent being as well. Realist. Freed you in what sense? Transcendent-humanist. In the sense that I no longer disparage my humanness, nor demand so much from my transcendence. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  But why would you want to disparage your humanness? It's natural, isn't it. </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Yes, but what is natural is not also so attractive nor commendable, to put it lightly. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I><I> </I> True, but how can that be helped? After all, we're only human, as the saying goes. </div> <div> <I><B>TH. </B></I> I know, but I've always had this drive to be more than human, to rise above the lowly, ugly side of my sensual, ego nature. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I><B>  </B>Oh? You wanted to be a saint? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  No, no, not a saint; rather I aspired to be more human than my natural self that wants only its way. I wanted to rise above my sensuality, my ego, my fears, my needs; and, I suppose, most of my desires too. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I><I> </I> And have you had any considerable success in this pursuit? </div> <div> <I><B>TH. </B></I><B> </B>Considerable, yes; but not consistent. Like a pendulum, I have always swung from my humanness back to transcendence, and vice versa, without stop. Yet, I'm sure I've gained quite measurably in my transcendent life, but never to my satisfaction; my sensuality and ego, in general, have always interfered with any consistency. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I><B>  </B>And how has your new way of life <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> what is it? your human-transcendence <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> helped you in this struggle? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Well, as I said, it has made me finally accept my humanness in all its variety in a relaxed, free, and cheerful way; and helped me not to require, or expect, so much of myself transcendently. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  So, is what you're saying is that you now just give in to your natural impulses freely when they come upon you, and when satiated, you turn to transcendent matters? </div> <div> <I><B>T-H.</B></I>  Well, it's not that simple.  I don't give in to every natural impulse <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> heaven help me; and others too. Basically my transcendence helps me, and has always helped me, in those unspoken areas. But being unspoken, and unpracticed in good part, I'm at least no longer ashamed of those dark areas. I realize that they too are natural to my humanity. I didn't ask for them; life marked me with them; they are just as natural to me as my ego, or my fears, or my drives. I just don't care to be a slave to them, nor to let them undermine my well-being. In which case I have always turned to my transcendence: whether moral, spiritual, or aesthetic transcendence, to keep me in line, so to speak. The difference now is that I'm simply more relaxed about my frail, lusting, fearing, addictive, insecure,violent ego-sensual nature. I accept it as part of my makeup. I'm not struggling against it so much. It's here to stay regardless of how transcendent I may become. My struggle, my quest, if I may say, is to be as transcendent of this ego-sensual nature as I can so that I can realize my full potentials as a human being, as a living being. I want more life, and so I believe I have to get beyond the narrow, confinement of my ego-sensual nature; it's quite satisfied with its continuous, monotonous, round of life pleasures; and if I let it, it will take me to grave with them. and them alone. I want something more, and I mean to do something about it, so long as there is this unmistakable impulse in me, somehow, for me to do so; and this is my transcendence working in me.  It balances out my ego-sensual nature while at the same time accepting and respecting it, even loving it , though not fully embracing it. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  What do you mean by "balancing out" your ego-sensual nature? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  I mean my transcendence helps to keep the proper perspective of that part of me: that it is only part of me--and not necessarily the better part; and that though I may fail myself countless times, I pick myself up and carry on always making headway, however slight, toward the person I want to be: a well-balanced person; and that is my human-transcendence, and my freedom. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  And what exactly is this transcendence that is doing such wonders for you? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  I don't know what it is exactly, but I can say that it is a state of consciousness that is beyond my own self-interest, or self-will, or self-preoccupation, or even self-concern. It includes a sense of the beautiful, of wonder, of love; it includes being observant of myself, of others, of nature; it includes the contemplation of life and existence and their meaning, of the order of things. It is a consciousness of delight, joy, vastness, power, bliss, the totality of things--everything conscious that goes beyond self-consciousness. It is what inspires me to the moral virtues: justice, generosity, courage, patience, self-control; it is what inspires me to be moderate in matters of sex, eating, desiring, fearing; it is what inspires the noble in me, the heroic: I would like not to fear pain, or suffering, or dying or failure or rejection; I would like not to think ill of others; I would like not to get angry; I would like to love so vastly that I rise above myself to embrace all opposites in life with deep understanding and not without pain...but that is my dilemma: I can only rise to such an occasion of self-lessness with the mightiest of pain <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>the pain of self-denial; and yet I secretly want to be even beyond pain in this high transcendence. As a matter of fact, I realize that all this transcendence for which I strive is deep-down the need to go beyond the pain of human life; I want to be above it so that I can experience more life, be invincibly loving, taking all the pain of others upon my shoulders; let pain not matter to me <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> let it be the ultimate pleasure for me! You see,I once believed that if I conquer my human- ness, I conquer pain and suffering and sorrow; and that victory would give me the might to stride the world like a god; and in my case, I would use that might for the good; and I would pass on to others this philosopher's stone, this holy grail. </div> <div> Totally unrealistic. And so I came to think that it is not that I want to eliminate suffering, but that I want the strength to bear it. This was more a realistic approach to a transcendent life. But even that approach had its drawback for me; and that was <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and still is <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> how could I possibly go through life continuously bearing pain at all times; my frail humanity is not up to it? You might have noticed how denying of my humanity my quest for transcendence was; it was a matter of either/or: either my humanness alone or my transcendence alone; no reconciliation; total control of one or the other: either all-too-human or more-than human; no more no less. </div> <div> This outlook on life continued to be a losing battle for me until I came upon the light of wisdom in this life: don't pit the one against the other; balance them. Let that be the fight, not the vain struggle to control or master that which can never be controlled or mastered.  And it was this realization that led me to the wisdom, the freedom, of human-transcendence. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  Interesting. But tell me, does God, or some such spiritual entity, fit into this schema of transcendence of yours? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Well, if I were to use the word "God," I would consider It as the whole range of this transcendent impulse in me, and in anyone else. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  I see. And am I right?: your, our, humanness consists of anything that is self-induced, self-involved, self-motivated, self-concerned? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Yes, whatever involves self-will. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  And that your, our, transcendent self is any state of consciousness that is beyond self-consciousness, is that right? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Right. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I><I> </I> And this wisdom of human-transcendence is exactly what again? </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  A blend, a balance, a harmony between one's human self and one's transcendent self; or to omit the word "self," should it be thought that there are two selves involved her, let me just use one's humanness and one's transcendence as the totality of one's conscious reality. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  Good. And what again is the advantage of this balance of which you speak? I mean, there are many people who are just as content and free in being human only, just as there are others who are content and free to be transcendent, or spiritual, only; such as, monks, seers, saints, sages, and all such people. </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Well, the advantage, at least for my type of individual who can neither decry nor deny either his humanness or transcendence, is that there is no longer dissension between the two; but rather a balance between them. I am no longer concerned with being perfectly this or perfectly that; and so, much tension and inner conflict have eased off. I don't claim to have realized this balance yet, but it's coming; I'm much more relaxed about myself than ever before. I don't know what is in store for me in this new inner adventure, but I can see no other way but to live in this free-flowing attitude, and let my natural defenses and propensities and aspirations take their effect. </div> <div> <I><B>R. </B></I> Well, it sounds like a fascinating endeavor you've embarked upon, and I wish you all the success in it. </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Thank you. And how about you? Would you be interested in such a wisdom of life? </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  Oh, no; I have too many other interests right now to take on anything new, thank you. And besides, my life as it is  quite satisfactory. I hope you're not going to try to convert me. </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Not convert you, but give you a new insight. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  If you'll forgive me, you fellows are all alike; you find a way of life that fulfills you, and right away you think it will suit everyone. </div> <div> <I><B>TH.</B></I>  Yes, I suppose it's natural to want to share one's good fortune with others. </div> <div> <I><B>R.</B></I>  Well, don't take offense, but you care for your own soul, and leave me to mine; I'll be all right. </div> <div> 47.  All that you accept regarding human nature is not necessarily, nor especially, all that of which you approve. </div> <div> 48.  When the transcendent glow descends upon you, then surely bask in it for its duration; but try no to rue its departure, for our counterpart is not up to sustaining any one state of consciousness for long. </div> <div> 49.  The very feeling of loving your humanness, and that in others, is in itself transcendent of  you. </div> <div> 50.  That you are more relaxed about the "lower" parts of your nature: your frailties, folly, vulnerabilities, lusts, greed, to name a few--in no way means that you'll feel free to indulge them all, or at all times uninhibitedly; after all, you do have your moral character to keep you "in line," to keep you upright; and if not your moral character, then your own self-respect and sense of decency; and if not even these to keep you on the "straight and narrow path," then the eye and judgment of others and society. </div> <div> 51.  Being at ease with your failings and shortcomings and needs and impulses makes you more aware of yourself, since you no longer push away the unattractive or vulnerable sides of your nature as though they had no right to their place. And being sensitively aware of yourself, you are more likely to develop your transcendent side more expansively. And <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> if you happen to be interested <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> this process of growing awareness has its sure foundation in the Buddhist and Zen path of life. </div> <div> 52.  It is so much easier, and freer, to prefer not to submit to one's natural inclinations in a particular areas than to feel compelled to because one must be ideal, perfect, or spiritual, or sensitive, or all loving, or all good, or because of sin or retribution. </div> <div> 53.  Fall a thousand times, and stalwartly pick yourself up a thousand times and go on. Never despair. Living transcendently with one's fallible nature is the good, valiant fight. Let us win the race. Be sure that one day you will not fall so many times. </div> <div> 54.  The wisdom of human-transcendence gives you your humanness in good cheer, and your transcendence in good measure. </div> <div> 55.  "Being down to earth" <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> that is the meaning of our humanness; getting to the order of our life is the meaning of our existence. </div> <div> 56.  <I>The ideal life</I>: An acceptance of you as you are with a constant looking forward and up toward your ideals and hopes. And if you have renounced all ideals and hope, then let that be your acceptance, let that be your transcendence, let that be your nobility, your heroism, your freedom. </div> <div> 57.  With human-transcendence one has his humanness in friendship when his transcendent mood or interest dispels; and of course he has his transcendence when under the pressure or oppression of his humanness. In either case, no depression, no boredom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> our two psychological scourges. </div> <div> 58.  Being aware (the work of transcendence) one's very human moods of boredom, irritability, impatience, depression, and the like, makes it easier to deal with them, and so transcend them. In this way, one is not taken unawares so easily; he knows what to expect of himself, of his humanness. </div> <div> 59.  So you made a mistake! so you spilt the milk! Smile at it. delight in your imperfections. </div> <div> 60.  Defy life's harshness, meanness, adversities, horrors! This is being the overman, the transcendent humanist, the master of the situation. </div> <div> 61.  Go ahead dig a ditch, sweep the floor, clean the toilet, the dog's mess; get your hands dirty, sweat under the hot sun, exhaust yourself physically. don't be so all mental, so all spiritual, so all dainty, so all meticulous. Live your human, earthly life lustily in delight of your clay humanity. It will do you good, will give savor to your life. And then when you return to your higher leanings, you will be refreshed, and more receptive--and more deserving. </div> <div> 62.  <I>How one becomes stalwart</I>.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> by facing the brunt and hardships of his-her life and humanness; not by turning aside from them at such times. Face them, deal with them, flow with them, and they will respect you. Resist them and they will resist you, and you will suffer. Labor, sweat, plough under the scorching sun! Are you thirsty? Then be thirsty for a bit ; don't be so quick to drink; bear it a little. Be a man, be a woman: physically, mentally, morally, spiritually <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> all the same, in the final analysis. We need courage, strong and true, so as not to buckle under the force of life. Meet force with force. </div> <div> 63.  In accepting noble our humanness we are not so much in resistance against it, and so are better able to deal with it, when necessary. </div> <div> 64.  Today I love mankind, but yesterday I didn't; and I know I have hated it too. But that is natural enough; since there is much to love about human life, much to be indifferent about, much to hate. We would be fools to love every side of humankind, be inhuman to be indifferent to everything human, and be hateful ourselves to hate it without letup. </div> <div> 65.  When you need the aesthetic feeling, the sense of transcendence, then turn to works of beauty whether in art, science, nature, religion, philosophy, meditation, contemplation. But! Remember, this ethereal mood will pass, and then back to your other side you return: your all-too-human self. don't forget! </div> <div> 66.  The only certainty in our psychic life is that we traverse from one mood to the next, one energy level to the next; and it is this certainty to which we must adjust. </div> <div> 67.  Our humanness is ultimately fallible, weak; our transcendence ultimately infallible, strong. </div> <div> 68.  Do you feel silly? Good. Be silly, then. </div> <div> 69.  We want to be known as this, but not that; rather, let us be known as this and that. Let us have the daring to take such a step. </div> <div> 70.  Yes you must maintain your dignity amidst the play of your various opposing elements; that is your honor. But who can sustain this dignity at all times, especially when alone, or with those with whom you live, or in your thoughts <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> are your thoughts always so dignified and refined? Relax your dignified stance at times; it can be a bother, a burden, a bore to others <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> but then you know this, don't you. </div> <div> 71.  Delight in the diversities of life, of human life, as you joy in the unity, the beauty, the pure, the sublime, that is inherent to life without feeling embarrassed or ashamed if you go from "the sublime to the ridiculous," if you play the fool at times; but be the wise fool. </div> <div> 72.  Joy to life! And though we suffer for it often enough <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> joy to life nonetheless. </div> <div> 73.  Impermanency is the soul of diversity. </div> <div> 74.  Let your absolutes go, or I should say, your ideals of absolutes. There is nothing absolute in life; and that is where you are now: in life. </div> <div> 75.  A realistic idealist is he or she who does not rule out the possibility and effect of ideals, but is realistic about them. </div> <div> 76.  Coming to recognize and accept life's diversities, however ugly, bizarre and terrible they may be, amazingly relaxes one from tensions of one-sided, narrow attitudes and beliefs. </div> <div> 77.  It is easier to love when there is more in life, in oneself, and in others, to love. This truth alone would justify the reality of diversity. </div> <div> 78.  Self-freedom is the freedom that keeps one from being narrowed into isolated, stifling beliefs and attitudes. Open up! Clear your mind. Free your mind. </div> <div> 79.  Diversity is the other side of unity, is its manifestations. Unity underlies diversity; in which case, what we have is diversity-in-unity. </div> <div> 80.  However we may make light of our humanness, let us never forget that it is a serious, dead serious, affair. Frivolity, jest, folly, vanity, levity, are all fine in their place, as are the aesthetic, the moral, the spiritual. Let us not be of too good a cheer, let us not laugh too heartily, too long; else the force of life burgeoning in us will have the last laugh. </div> <div> <I>81.  A: </I>I don't believe in hating anyone or anything. </div> <div> <I>B: </I>But you accept the opposites in life, don't you? </div> <div> <I>A: </I>I do. </div> <div> <I>B: </I>Then why can't you hate as well? </div> <div> <I>A: </I>Because hate is destructive. </div> <div> <I>B: </I>What? You would want to eliminate destruction? </div> <div> 82.  Let guilt go! Give it a kick on its way out. You did, or did not, do it; All right, make amends if that is what is called for; and then pick yourself up and go on. That is your glory: that you can pick yourself up and go on; and perhaps in a more constructive, way. Don't crucify yourself because you did wrong. You will always do wrong in one way or another, more or less, as we all will, being fallible human beings. The quest for the transcendent-humanist is to aim for less than more often; but on our way, let us be easy on ourselves. </div> <div> 83.  A deep harmony between inner polarities is needed - an ability to shift from one polarity to the next in oneself and in life as they occur with the least inner conflict and suffering. </div> <div> 84.  Thank God <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> should there be one <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> for human diversity; and damn my ignorance when I judge others whose life style does no harm to me or others. </div> <div> 85.  Awareness and acceptance of diversity is a humbling experience, for sure; but it is a humility that uplifts, strengthens, cheers, interests, fascinates. This is the humility I'm sure Christ meant. </div> <div> 86.  Rather than put on airs of our importance or superiority, let us put on an air of cheerful, though strong, humanity toward all differences. </div> <div> 87.  Yes, I am weak, but I prefer more to be strong; yes, I can be unjust, but I prefer to be just; yes, I lust, but I prefer more to love; yes, I am excessive, but I prefer more to be moderate; yes, I am inconsiderate, but I prefer more...and on and on. In sum, yes, surely I am all-too-human, but I prefer to be mostly transcendently human. </div> <div> 88.  Accepting in a relaxed way your lusts, your weaknesses, your limitations, your fears, your violence, your weaknesses, your anger, your resentments, and all other undesirable traits, does not mean that you would give way to them at all times; after all, there is the other spirited, resisting side of you too that strives for more abundant life; and as it turns out in the natural order of things, lack of resistance restricts such abundance. But this resistance against oneself is not to be one of a brooding hostility, but one of a healthy competition of transcendence against humanness, and vice versa. Let neither side gain the victory <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> it couldn't in any case; but keep both in the game aiming for the victory, and perhaps even coming close to it, but not knowing till the last breath who the winner is <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> who has more points, so to speak. </div> <div> 89.  Life is an endless becoming; and so, an infinity of forms and activities and variety .In other words, diversity is just as infinite (and eternal?) as unity .There is not one without the other - so my limited mind conceives of it. </div> <div> 90.  We must be pliable, flexible; must lean with the wind of multiformity </div> <div> 91.  If you are partial to good only, then injustice, evil <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>your own too <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>will repel you; if you expect to be perfect, beautiful of soul only, then imperfection, ugliness, coarseness <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>your own too <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> will repulse you; if you expect to be intelligent only and right at all times, then ignorance and error <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> your own too <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>will rankle you. You will be judging others <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and yourself <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>ever. But the free spirit is above judging, for he-she is too engrossed in the play of opposites in life to be bound by mere judging, which has become a veritable bore to him; something he-she has outgrown long ago. </div> <div> 92.  Just as you expect diversity and change in life itself, expect the same in people. Inconsistency is the specific <I>human </I>form of diversity and change. There are few, if any, people who remain constant in anyone way; life moves on, life takes its toll. It is the transcendent element in us that remains constant, not the human element; and it is the former which accounts for whatever constancy there is between people. Love is its name. </div> <div> 93.  Expect much of yourself, but not <I>too </I>much; don't break under the pressure. And don't for get that you live with others too. Can they live comfortably with your austerity? </div> <div> 94.  Life is a diverse unity<B>. </B></div> <div> 95.  Diversity is the given; unity an inference <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and not necessarily a valid one; but certainly a possible, even probable one. Reason, being itself diverse, cannot penetrate the given to the necessity of unity. Unity can only be intuited-which, of course, does not logically, empirically, prove it; yet in quite another way does prove it; for, from whence does this intuition of unity arise? It is too universal an intuition for it to be meaningless, an illusion. And quite as a matter of fact, it is <I>experienced </I>by the rare individual (and perhaps not so rare as thought): insights that reveal truths that show a unity of interaction ( the atomic theory) or of evolution (natural selection) that empirical reality in itself could never reveal. These intuitive insights can be considered transcendent. So we have intuition and experience of unity, which are valid forms of reality. </div> <div> 95. <I> A: </I>Strive to be good, beautiful of soul. </div> <div> <I>B: </I>But I don't want <I>always </I>to be good or beautiful of soul: as a matter of fact. I <I>can't. </I></div> <div> 96.  Life is as much a unified whole as it is a diversified whole.<B> </B> </div> <div> 97.  Because you are liberal and open in your attitude toward life's diversities does not mean that you can expect others to be at your insistence; so don't force your attitude on others <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> <I>at least not in large doses! </I></div> <div> 98.  The free, open flowing attitude of diversity does not come easy at all times; it has to be worked at; for there is much and many to oppose such an attitude. </div> <div> 99.  The freedom that the diverse life offers the individual to be or do what he likes with relative impunity is like the freedom one feels with a large savings account. He has no intention of spending that money; it is his security. Similarly, one may <I>feel </I>free to do what he likes and rests content in that feeling without ever desiring to follow through that feeling. But to know that he could, without embarrassment or guilt, relaxes him in the sense that he is human in <I>all </I>respects, and so could fall, but most likely he will not. He is concerned more with fostering the positive, expanding aspects of his humanity. That is just the way he is; and perhaps there is not much he can do about it. Character is destiny saith the old Greek sage. </div> <div> 100.  To recognize, accept, live with, human frailties in oneself and in others make it much easier to live with oneself and with others; for we learn not to expect too much from ourselves and others. </div> <div> 101.  <I>Schopenhauer</I>: "And what temptations we cannot overcome, give in to them." This is a passage <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and a truth <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> that will always bother very much idealists, perfectionists, those of the spirit; especially coming from such a philosophic sage. </div> <div> 102.  Whenever I do something impulsively, irrationally, then am I reminded of my primeval origins embedded in my cells. This side of me is as much <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> if not more so <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> a part of me as my rational nature. </div> <div> 103.  The savage resides in you, be sure; but be wary that it does not <I>come out of</I> you. You will regret it. </div> <div> 104.  <I>Thoreau</I>: "Our lives will not attain to be spherical by lying on one or the other side forever; but only by resigning ourselves to the law of gravity in us, will our axis be coincident with the celestial axis and [only] by revolving incessantly through all circles, shall we acquire a perfect sphericity.” <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> The attitude of human-transcendence right to the point. </div> <div> <I>105.</I>  Walk proud that you are human, but soften that pride with the grace of your transcendence. </div> <div> 106.  Let us love our frailties as we do our strengths, our folly as we do our wisdom, our playas we do our seriousness. Let us be human in our transcendence. and transcendent in our humanness. </div> <div> 107.  Refuse to make others make you feel embarrassed, guilty, a fool, for enjoying simple, silly, "deca- dent," <I>pleasures</I> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> <I>for being who you are. </I>So you are a professor, a doctor, a judge, a minister, a lawyer; are you not also a fun-loving human being? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT>I hope you are, or heaven help those who live with you. Be serious when you must; but play otherwise. Be this and that: a sage and a clown, an authority figure and a friend, a classicist and a romantic. an idealist and a realist, a person of precision and a person who also makes, and freely admits his mistakes, an artist and an artisan; one who works with his mind and his body, who loves his spirit and his body. This open attitude is all very well; but the timing and self-command necessary for this attitude take a wisdom of sorts. </div> <div> 108.  Come, let us put on the new man! <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> not only for ourselves, but for our descendents who will look upon us with noble and majestic pride as we do our Greek and Roman ancestry. </div> <div> 109.  Leave off the <I>stance </I>of being Dr. this or Monsignor that; Sir Importance, Lord Superior, Saint Sage. If you are these by natural capacity or social appointment, then fine; it is the <I>stance</I> to which I refer . </div> <div> 110.  It can be a complicated, confusing matter to consider the possibility of corning to love the lower rungs of our humanity; but with the right understanding and point of view, it can be a quite simple, natural matter; for then one is with life <I>all the way, </I>not only partly with one foot on earth and the other in heaven, not quite on one nor in the other. </div> <div> 111.  <I>Camus</I>: "Rama Krishna on trade<B>:</B> </div> <div>                          'The truly wise man is he who feels contempt for nothing.' </div> <div>                          Do not confuse sanctity with idiocy ." </div> <div> 112.  And what does not feeling contempt for anything imply but that such a wise individual has come to accept and love the diversity and opposites in both human life and all other forms of life. </div> <div> 113. There is beauty and goodness in life just as there is ugliness and evil. We've known this all along. Life has it that way, and who are we to deny or reject the one over the other? True, the one delights and the other pains; but are we such softlings that we would want only the delightful? </div> <div> 114.  You say your life has been a wreck. Others did it to you, more than you yourself. You have no promise in your life. Rage, and resentment war in your mind. Depression sinks it often enough. You have no God to turn to. A few friends make it possible for you to go on. Yet your life is on the wane. Your humanity has fairly much done you in. Nothing seems left...except your transcendence! And what can your transcendence do for you? Well, let's take a review of some of its aspects:<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> our sense of beauty. our acts of love, our tendency toward goodness, toward right, toward grace, toward being, toward contemplation, meditation; our impulse to create, to know, to understand, to observe, to reflect, to analyze; our intuitions and visions of universal truths; nirvanic states of pure bliss-light-power. Of these aspects, which appeal to you </div> <div> 115.<I>  Life </I>itself is ugly and cruel; and humans and animals are merely instruments of this bleak side of life. They didn't ask for it; it was biologically given free of charge. and so, let us be a little more hesitant before we judge too severely, too cruelly, the evil that comes over us impulsively. Fortunately, most of us are not so easily overcome by such force; but others by temperament and constitution are mere playthings to this force of evil in life. They haven't a chance; they're victims, as we all are in our own way. So, why all this judgment and prejudice and bigotry and condemnation and humiliation? </div> <div> Let us consider the sexual side of us for a minute to make my point stronger. Those given uninhibitedly to their sexual nature we denominate as whores, rakes, degenerates, perverts. but did they freely choose their particular proclivity, I ask you proponents of free will ? When puberty washed over them like a flood, did they, could they, carefully deliberate whether puberty should or should not have such a volcanic effect on them? Was it their choice to be so sexually sensitive that they become engulfed by the least sexual stimulation, and can think of hardly anything else? Are they to be condemned for their "sins" to everlasting hellfire for their natural tendencies? Rather condemn <I>life </I>than these poor souls who received such an untoward fate -- untoward not so much for the individual who might very well be content with his endowment, but untoward because of the price society exacts on them in ridicule, condemnation, rejection, punishment. Not to say that the extremes of sexuality do not have to be kept in check; but they don't have to be degraded. After all, in the final say, it is life itself that is the culprit. </div> <div> 116.  But how many can attain, let alone maintain, this point of view? and how many of these can put such a point of view in practice? </div> <div> 117.  Still, there is always tomorrow, always something to look forward to; and the least, if not the most, we can say about people in general is that they get bored with anyone way of looking at matters. And so, for no other reason than boredom, they might try a new way of life. And if so, then, my fellow men and women, we have a future to look forward to. </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>=====================</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> These introductory remarks, then, offer a general understanding of the wisdom of human-transcendence, an understanding that can become a practical reality and help lead us to the self- freedom of which we seek. Were we to summarize these remarks into an overall outline, an understanding of this human-transcendence outlook would become clearer, and so, more workable. </div> <div> Accordingly, we could view the <I>human </I>side of us from five broad perspectives: pleasure, pain, need, want, and self; and the <I>transcendent </I>side of us from five broad perspectives as well: truth, right, understanding, grace, and being. </div> <div> We feel both physical and psychological pleasures and pains; we have both physical and psychological needs and wants; and it is the self of us that harbors, bears, these pleasures and pains, needs and wants separately and interactively. It is these attributes that make up the human composite being. Basically, tension is what prevails in this human realm: tension between pleasure and pain, between various wants and needs, and the self which is made to deal with all of these variables, consciously, subconsciously, and unconsciously. </div> <div> It is the transcendent in us that is concerned with the truth (psychological, moral, aesthetic, spiritual truth), with right (that which is <I>justly </I>right), with understanding (self and other-directed understanding; understanding the meaning of life and the world), with grace (beauty of person and action and works), and with being (the sheer awareness of, the <I>being, </I>one's mental condition <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> whether of pain, pleasure, want, need, or self <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> without judgment, analysis, or any other form of rational cognition; as well as the contemplation of being in its universal meaning). </div> <div> Our transcendence eases the tension of our human side inasmuch as it moderates our human traits into the proper perspective of feeling and action so that we experience our pains and pleasures, our needs and wants, our self, in perspective of what is <I>true </I>and <I>right, </I>with <I>understanding </I>and <I>grace, </I>and in accordance with <I>being </I>simply that pain or pleasure, need or want, or state of self-consciousness. </div> <div> If anything, human-transcendence is a <I>intuitive  psychology: </I>a psychology of the <I>wisdom of the human species </I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> of<I> </I>which we all are and share. The more in touch we are with the wisdom of our species, the more understanding we are of ourselves and of others. And so it is incumbent upon us to come to under- stand not only our human psychology but our transcendent, or intuitive, psychology as well. The more understanding we derive, the more meaningful our lives will become regardless of our station or circumstances. </div> <div> And this understanding takes a kind of heroism because of the psychological barriers and fears we must break through to attain the first glimmerings of this understanding. Once the glimmerings appear, though, you will then know that the glimmerings will become brighter and more constant; and you will be on your way to your self-freedom. </div> <div> And what are these glimmerings? They are the sunken, intuitive truths of your life, and of life itself, surfacing to your consciousness. They are not only the painful, repressed, or otherwise blocked truths, but truths that define you as a person apart from your repressions and anxieties and rage and expectations of others. They are truths that you can begin to clothe yourself with which fit you comfortably as the individual person that you are and had lost. They are complex (raveled) psychological truths, but simple (clear) intuitive truths. An intuitive truth is beyond self-consciousness; and so is <I>transconscious. </I>When an intuitive truth surfaces to the conscious mind and influences (changes) our psychology, we then are in a transconscious state of understanding; and with that understanding comes the rush of freedom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> freedom from ignorance's rule in a particular situation. We act truly, wisely, from that quantum of understanding; and depending upon the range of that quantum of understanding, our entire lives could change for the better <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> regardless of the ruins we leave behind. When the truth - an intuitive truth <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> illuminates us; we can never return to our former darkness. <I>Then </I>we can accept the pain of change, of development, of freedom regardless of what is at stake; for first of all, in a way, we have no choice but to act wisely; and secondly, with a taste of freedom, who would want to return to slavery again, except those who know nothing else, or who are slavish by nature; and thirdly, this intuitive truth puts us in touch<I> </I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT><I> humanly </I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT><I> </I>with our transcendence. Thus our human-transcendence. </div> <div> What we are to explore then is the human condition in search of understanding <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> higher understanding <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> so that we may click in to, make contact with, our intuition; which is the reservoir, so to speak, of the wisdom of our species <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> our transcendence. And being in contact with our transcendence, we expect that we will be on the road to our self-freedom. And with this self- freedom we will finally be the person we always wanted to, but failed to come up to. and what is this person, but the moral, spiritual individual who acts rightly and lovingly, if not at all times, then most of the time; the virtuous person who is generous, brave, considerate, patient, at the right time, in the right circumstances, with the right person. This is the person who has freed himself from the bondage of his ego-self, with its fears, anxieties, lusts, impulses, insecurities enough so that he acts in wisdom. Nothing matters more than that he acts in wisdom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> which is rightly, truthfully, understandingly, in grace, and in touch with his essential being: his soul. </div> <div> This state of grace is "devoutly to be wished," however unrealistic it may be to a particular person. This is the transcendent specter that hounds him through his life and failings to the grave. He achieves this wisdom at times, and in part; but hardly ever to the extent that he strives for, that he idealizes. He is forever caught in the wheel of life: now this-now-that. Inconsistency, inconstancy are his life; yet he struggle on for more consistency, more constancy, more virtue, more wisdom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> more transcendence, in a word. </div> <div> The tragedy of this state of affairs for so many idealists is that they cannot reconcile themselves to their humanness; they cannot come to terms with it. Their transcendence is too demanding on them; and so they strive and struggle and suffer to attain transcendence to the exclusion and detriment of their humanness. They see themselves as degraded sinners, moral weaklings, carnal animals; natural functions bother them very much. They cry out in their souls, "Purity before all else!" By feeling degraded, they in turn degrade their humanity; and those closest to them suffer for it. they must live on a plane higher than the vulgar, mundane masses. They resent, and criticize, and judge, and deplore gross in others and in themselves. Normal human sensuality, sexuality, money-making, pettiness are below them even though they themselves are subject to the same given the appropriate circumstances. </div> <div> It takes many of these idealists years to come to a faint understanding and acceptance of their own fallibility, and weakness, and vulnerabilities; to the realization that they too are all-too-human, and that most likely will never near the high moral and transcendent ideals for which they for so many years strove and suffered. They realize that the lack of understanding of their psychology, their transcendence, have been mainly the cause of their failure. They may have tried all the moralities, all the religions, all the psychologies, all the therapies, all the philosophies; and however much understanding they had gained, they still find themselves empty-handed, so to speak; still subject to their own human peculiarities, susceptibilities, vulnerabilities, weaknesses, neuroses. They find themselves giving either too much credence to their psychology to the exclusion of their transcendence, or vice versa; and they somehow cannot balance, reconcile, the two. </div> <div> This is where the wisdom of human-transcendence comes into play; why both a psychological and transcendent understanding of oneself is so crucial to attain to a measure of wisdom. One must face his vices (excesses) before he can attain his virtues (medians). The more psychological understanding a person attains the more receptive he is to intuitive understanding. And the more intuitive understanding one attains the more in touch with wisdom he will be <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> which is the optimum for which he is living. </div> <div> It is the purpose of this work to help lead the receptive reader to this wisdom. And this wisdom can best be attained by exploring first our humanness in its natural state, then our human-transcendence in its struggle beyond this natural state; and finally our transcendence in its intuitive wisdom that inspires this struggle. </div> <bR> <div> Let me begin with our most familiar side: our humanness. In this way we can become more aware of the many obvious, and not so obvious obstacles <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> some of them formidable <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> to the self-freedom of which we so aspire. I might consider our humanness to <I>be walls </I>against our self- freedom, and our human-transcendence, <I>bridges </I>toward this self-freedom <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> which is our transcendence. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="ii_the_psychology_of_humanness"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>II: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMANNESS</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Sharon.</B>  In what sense do you use the word our "humanness"? Couldn't you just as well use the word our "psychology"?</div> <div> <B>Joseph.</B>  As I see it, our humanness is one pivotal range of our psychology. Put  simply, it is our vulnerability. </div> <div> <B>Sharon.</B>  Vulnerability to what?</div> <div> <B>Joseph.</B>  To necessity.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Necessity to what?</div> <div> <B>J</B>.  To our humanized animal nature.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Which is?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  The composite of our pleasures and pains, our wants and needs, and our self -- or self-identity.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Well, if these are what define our humanness, without which, I suppose, we would be no more than clams, why then do you consider them our vulnerability? The higher animals <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> the apes, in particular <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> are made up of this composite of pleasures, pains, wants, needs, and self. They don't manifest any significant signs of vulnerability <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> boredom, for one <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> even though they are vulnerable to sickness, attack, aging, etc.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  True; but the distinctive mark of the human animal is our self-consciousness: the awareness of being a human being <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and all the psychology that derives from that reality.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  I see that. In sum, then what you're saying is that our self-awareness if our vulnerability, which in turn, defines our humanness.</div> <div> <B>J.  </B>Right. It is our self-awareness that motivates us to imitate, explore, innovate, be curious, beyond mere animal consciousness.  </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  I noticed that you're speaking both of self-consciousness and self-awareness. Are you using the two terms interchangeably?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  No, not precisely. There is a distinction. As self-conscious, we are psychologically human; as self-aware, we are transcendently human.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  You'll have to explain that carefully to me.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Let me put it in a nutshell: as self-conscious, we know <I>what</I> we are doing; as self-aware, we know <I>why</I> we do what we do: we know the motives or intentions of our actions.  And it is this knowing-why that troubles us so much that would make Thoreau declaim that we all live in quiet despair. ...Well, I don't know about all of us; but at least those who are self-aware. I think that as soon as a human being begins asking "why" of his existence, or of existence itself, self-awareness clicks in with the reality that there either are no answers or that if there are answers, we can't know them all or to their limit. And this troubles, frustrates us, to the point of despair, dread, angst, anxiety, of all sorts. And for these self-aware individuals, knowing that there are so many unanswerable questions to their lives, realize the mystery to life and existence: Why? Why? Why? No answers despite all the answers! And this troubles them, consciously and/or unconscious- ly, some to the extent that they must pursue this unknowable mystery all their lives; or they take to faith or a religion, astrology, or any meaningful (to them) answers that will explain the mystery away so that they can be rest assured that all's right in God's heaven and earth. </div> <div> When under such an influence, the mere human is looked at askance, is perceived as a block to the answer to these inscrutable mysteries. They think that if they minimize their human side the Other side will appear in all its glory, that the Holy Grail will be given them. From that point, all natural human-animal functions become cumbersome,  "animal," even "unnatural"; They must limit the irrational in us and emphasize the rational <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> at least to the barest minimum, otherwise we'd die as individuals and as a species <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> wants, needs, pleasures, pains, self, so that the Answers will pour into our being. Then, guilt enters the picture, since our animal-human side will not give in so easily to such tomfoolery, unless we divorce ourselves from mainstream humanity - hence monks, sanyasins, gurus, and the priesthood to a good extent. And even then there is no escaping entirely the lure of sensuality</div> <div> Now we can attribute all this anxiety-ridden frame of mind to the bane or boon, depending upon the individual, of self-awareness. Without self-awareness, no such mental dendrites would be created, and so no psychological ideation. We could still be self-conscious, as so many people only, or mostly, are; that is, know that we are alive, know that we are to die, know how to reason, know how to build and create, know that we are propagating our race differently than the animals, know that we are man and woman beyond male and female, know the similarities and differences between the sexes, between the races, between justice and injustice, and so forth. But without enquiring as to the why and wherefore of these human conditions, no, or few, psychological "problems" would arise, and so no reason not to enjoy our human sensuality. Why should our pleasures, wants and needs be curbed so long as no one is hurt except oneself, perhaps; so long as we are not striving to transcend our minds to answer the mysteries of life and existence? Yes, we are still vulnerable: vulnerable to the consequences of excess, of public opinion, of failure, of rejection, of insult, of embarrassment; but we are not vulnerable to anxieties, neuroses, and the like. This is the position of the self-conscious individual.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Well that was quite an exposition, and fairly much explains the issue at hand. But how does all this relate to our humanness?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>   We, as human, are all vulnerable to stimuli that arouse our erotic nature, our vital nature, our self-nature. This vulnerability, when active, pains us for relief, for satisfaction, for gratification; there's almost no stopping this very human process. The more self-aware we are of this vulnerability, the more we realize how bound we are to our sexual, vital, self wants and needs; how they interfere with our higher leanings, how tedious they can become, how victimized we are to them, how limiting they are. Those who are mainly self-conscious only, can continue in the round of pleasures with their pains, wants and needs, self-stimulation with hardly a thought of the mysteries of life and existence; but the self-aware individuals suffer deeply knowing that they are stuck, stymied, frustrated, in their humanness; that their lifelong habits and conditioning that ground them to their humanness are walls to their transcendence <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> that is, to the freedom that they sense is to be found in the answers to the mysteries of life and existence. The Faust legend is the paradigm of a man who sells his soul to the devil so that he can get to, unravel, the ultimate secrets of nature.</div> <div> <B>S.</B> I see now quite well your distinction between self-consciousness and self-awareness, that the former knows the facts of his life; whereas the latter, not only knows but questions these facts; and I agree with it; I also see that the self-aware person suffers more than the self-conscious person for his questioning awareness. However, I'm still not clear on the vulnerability relationship to our humanness. Wouldn't you apply the term "humanness" to the self-conscious person as well?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>   Well, in the general sense of the word, yes; as humanness is the noun form of "human", which applies to all attributes characteristic of mankind. In a more specific sense of the word, however, as I am using it, its meaning applies to the self-aware person. In which case, we say of such a person that his humanness conflicts with his transcendence; or in other words, her all-too-human side conflicts with her more-than-human side. In other words, whatever psychological traits and behavioral patterns that contrast, or limit, a person's aspirations and inspirations of a higher, transcendent, ideal order, then those traits and patterns can be classified as that person's humanness. Is that clear?</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Let me see if I've gotten it. Is this what you're saying: whatever psychological traits or actions, motives, or intentions we have that conflict with our transcendent nature, these are what constitute our humanness? Is that right?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes; you've put it quite succinctly.  </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Good. Now let me follow your argument through step by step. In the beginning of our discussion, you said that our humanness is our vulnerability. Is that right?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Yet in the course of your argument, you've included self-conscious individuals as vulnerable too.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That's right; but with the distinction that self-aware individuals are vulnerable to necessity; that's the key word. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Necessity to what?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  To the laws, the chains, of our animal human nature. We are all bound to them, yet the self-aware individuals intuit a freedom from them in the Other reality of essence and being, infinity and eternity, in structure and form, in order and unity, and all that which drive philosophers, scientists, sages, spiritualists, seers, to seek the universal unifying principle to it all.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  I see now. And the self-aware ones are those who realize that in order to grasp these concepts, to experience their Reality, they have to be fairly free from, or moderate in, the agitations of sense pleasures, and the distractions of ego concerns?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes; and they believe that this paring down of our ego-sensuality will free us in good part from necessity; because then we will be free from this vulnerability of our humanness.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  I've got it now. Let me see if I can sum it up for myself. Self-aware individuals are vulnerable to the necessities of human nature because they intuit a Reality in which they are free from this necessity. Am I on track so far.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  You are.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Yet being alive in this reality subjects them to its natural bio-psychological determinants - pleasures, pains, needs, wants, self - which they strive to minimize so as to reach the freedom intuited in this Other Reality. Am I still on track?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Keep going.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Now all bio-psychological thoughts and acts which conflict with those thoughts and acts pertinent to this Other Reality are what constitute our humanness.  </div> <div> <B>J.</B>  You've got it. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  And there is no such conflict with people who are only self-conscious?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Well, I wouldn't say <I>no</I> conflict whatsoever, for human nature is so diversely complex that we couldn't possibly unravel the nexus of human consciousness; but in the main, no.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  What word then do we attribute to the vulnerability of self-conscious individuals?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  I would think the term "humanity" in the sense that it is of the nature of our common humanity that we are all vulnerable to our psycho-physical make-up. To term this common humanity as "humanness" in a certain set of human beings is a simply matter of perspective, of clarification, of relationship.</div> <div> <B>S. </B> Of relationship to the Other Realty that they intuit.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes, or more specifically, our transcendent nature. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  I've noticed you used the term "transcendence" a few times in our discussion. I'd like to explore its meaning another time.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes, let's. Since you might recall that at the beginning of our discussion, I stated that as self-conscious, we are psychologically human; and as self-aware, we are transcendently human. So there is a need to understand what I mean by "transcendently human".</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="iii_the_philosophy_of_transcendence"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>III: THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSCENDENCE</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Sharon.</B>  All that you write revolves around the concept of transcendence. I like the word; it seems to have significant meaning. </div> <div> <B>Joseph.</B>  It has even more meaning when you personalize it as my transcendence.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  What is my transcendence?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Everything just and wise that you are. In other words, whenever you act justly and wisely <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> or in justice and in wisdom -- you are acting, or being, transcendent.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  How do I know when I'm acting justly or wisely? It seems very complex to me.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Well, first of all, we can simplify the matter by saying that when you act justly, you as much act wisely, and vice versa; in which case, you have done the right thing.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Sounds even more complex to me; because in my experience, doing the right thing can be as difficult as a novice archer hitting a bulls-eye.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  And why do you think that is?</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Well, for one thing, our ignorance gets in the way, clouds our mind; as do our ego, our impulses, our passions, our fears, our lusts, our insecurities, and on and on.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Speaking of bulls-eyes, you hit the bulls-eye with that truth. So, then are you saying that doing the right thing is almost impossible?</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Certainly in most cases, unless you're a monk, or a bachelor, with few responsibilities. It's all to much, too overwhelming, too requiring, to have to be doing the right thing all the time. There's no end to it, no let up. We falter after a while; we're not up to it. Too many obstacles bar the way: fatigue, varying moods, impatience, disappointments, to name a few of our human frailties.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  I see. Now, before we go on, we have to be clear in what respect we're using the word "right." We're using it mainly in regards to our personal and interpersonal well-being. We're not using it in regards to our work and in relation to our co-workers and peers. Doing the right thing in these areas do not pose too much of a problem for most people, since our job is at stake, for one thing, and we're getting paid for doing the right thing. Nor are we using the word in moral matters; since we are not faced with many moral decisions or dilemmas in the normal course of our daily lives. And for those who are moral-minded, doing the right thing morally, does not normally pose much of a conflict.</div> <div>      So, given that right is not a problem in the matters just mentioned, it is clearer as to what we are referring to in speaking of the immense difficulty in consistently doing the right thing in every day matters. Regarding this thought, the title of an old love song comes to me: "Little Things Mean a Lot."</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  And what are these "little things"?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  They're innumerable, of course. But a few of them are: "Should I pick up this piece of paper or leave it for her to pick it up?" Leaving things to the last minute; having to have the last word in everything; holding grudges; leaving undone what should be done. And then there is the whole host of unfair conduct toward others, such as: pettiness, insults, impatience, irritability, inconsideration, spite, criticisms, backbiting, gossiping, prying, and on and on and on.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  All this negativity seems to stem mainly from one's ego, doesn't it.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That's right; and the insensitivity and desiring and greed, and vanity;  the misunderstandings, prejudices, denials, delusions, power hunger, and more, are all symptoms of the ego-directed person.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  It's amazing, even astonishing, of how much we have going against us in this matter of right-doing.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That's true. They keep us, in good part, from not only doing right, but in ignorance of what is right. We perceive and judge a situation or person more by our ego perspective than by their perspective, than by fuller truth of the matter.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Right. And without knowing the fuller truth of a situation, or of a person, how can we possibly know what is the right thing to do in so many complex situations. So, we "play it by ear"; we act from what we "feel" is right, from our experience, than with understanding.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Exactly. So, where are we now in this matter of right and transcendence? </div> <div> <B>S. </B> I'm not sure, but I do know that acting only from our ego engenders much conflict and hostility between people.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That's for sure. No wonder that sages and seers and gurus of all ages and climes have insisted upon dispelling the ego if there is to be any spiritual <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> or in our terminology: transcendent <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >-- </FONT>advancement. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  But hardly anyone wants to, or can, let go of their ego. That's all they have, or, so they think.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  And no convincing them otherwise will ever alter that state of mind.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  So, there seems nothing to do then. Mankind is fixed ever in his ego with just glimmerings of something beyond it: something more valuable, more precious, more life-affirming, more complete.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That's true, but with this one proviso: that not everyone is so ego-bound that it governs their every act and thought. There are countless people, I'm sure, who do see the truth, who are understanding, beyond their ego. These are the individuals who, not being so compelled by their ego, can see clearly the right thing to do however they might not be able to act upon that insight.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  But don't these individuals you're describing have a low self-esteem, in the first place?</div> <div> <B>J.</B> I think you're confusing two concepts here. There is a distinction between a person's ego and his self. Ego is just one integral facet of the total self-complex, not similar or identical to it. The ego is concerned with the "I"; with the "me first," the "I am the best," the "I am someone special <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> more than you". The self, on the other hand, involves our vital nature: its fears, needs, anxieties, guilt; its will to life, to keep the body healthy, and more. It covers the whole range of emotions and sentiments involved in the erotic element in us <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> marriage, children, family.</div> <div>      Accordingly, a person may have a low ego threshold, yet by fulfilled as a parent, a spouse, a profes- sional, a worker. In which case, his self-esteem is at a high key. On the other hand, another person may have a strong ego, but because of various setbacks  and failures in family life and professional life, his self-esteem would be at a low ebb.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>   Can we say, then, that an egoistic, or egotistical, person is not the same as a self-loving person?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Good question; and right on the mark. We could put it this way: vanity is an earmark of ego, which renders a person insensitive to anything much beyond that vanity; whereas, pride is an earmark of self-esteem, which can be a noble trait in a person.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  So it is the ego that has to go, not the self?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Well, we couldn't very well function as human without our self; but we could fairly much without our ego.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  So, having made this distinction between the self and the ego, where are we now?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That, where the ego prevails and its vanity predominates in an individual, there he or she stays enmeshed. For those whose ego and vanity are a minimal part of their psychological makeup, these are the ones who can be receptive to transcendence.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  By which you mean receptive to justice and wisdom?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Right. For then they are open to knowing the truth about a situation or person or themselves. And with this truth, they can gain an understanding that will help balance their self with the wisdom of their total being.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Their total being? </div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes, the totality of their physical and mental structures and processes.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  That's an infinite interchange of energy and matter.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes. where does it end?...Or is there an end to it all?</div> <div> <B>S.</B> I don't suppose we'll ever know.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Certainly not "know"; but perhaps "be".</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Well, rather than we get into the metaphysics, or spirit, of this, let me ask you. You defined transcendence at the beginning of our talk as "everything just and wise that we are"; which I think gives an excellent understanding in one sentence. I'm thinking, however, why you didn't include "loving" in it; since love is such an all-pervasive, positive concept, that I believe is the basis of justice and wisdom, or more particularly, of our being just and wise.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  It's interesting that you should ask this question because it anticipates my own thoughts. as I see it, transcendence <I>is</I> love. It is the undercurrent, the essence, of all that we are and all that we do in good and in evil, and in between.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  That's quite a stupendous statement! But, I have a question. Didn't you identify transcendence with everything just and wise that we are? Now you're saying that transcendence is everything, period; which means to me that transcendence is not only the just in us, but the unjust as well, not only the wise in us, but the ignorant in us as well. Then you say that transcendence is love; which, according to you, is the source of both good and evil. Can you clear this up for me? I'm terribly confused.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Well, first of all, we have to make a distinction between the words "source" and "cause" in this matter of love. Love as the source of good or evil is not the cause of either. Let me explain. I see it, love in its broadest, most universal, sense is the bond of unity. Now this bond can be considered as an attractive force or principle, or whatever else; but it is that which holds each entity together as its own unique form and structure and function. In this sense, love is the source of everything, of the world. To take this point one step further, everything that occurs in this world of unified "things," or "facts," or "relationships" - depending upon whether we are referring to energy or matter - comprises our three-dimensional, perceptive reality of cause and effect, time and space, form and structure. Is this clear so far?</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Fairly so, yes. But please, don't get too scientific or metaphysical on me.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Don't worry, I won't. I'm coming to my point now, anyway; which is: This source <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> Love <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT>  as I envision it, is causeless, effectless, timeless, formless, and so forth. The  categories of time, space, cause and effect, and so forth, exist within the three-dimensional (or more dimensions?) phenomenon of our existence. Love, on the other hand, is of the noumenon, or source, of this phenomenon. Again, it is that which binds every- thing together as a unified whole. Now, what occurs from there, to put it loosely, is a matter of cause and effect and all else phenomenal. To keep just to the cause and effect categories, these have nothing to do with this bond--this love, this source. This Love is of a transcendent reality, beyond our world of multiplicity.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  As distinguished from the unity of love?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes. And,  of course, we're in the age-old philosophical-religious distinction between multiplicity and unity, appearance and reality, and the like. But we're looking at it from a different perspective: from that of love. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  I see that.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  To continue my line of thought. Love, then, as the source of all that is, exists, or subsists, beyond the realm of that which it unifies; it is transcendent of them. Now deeply buried - to speak metaphorically - within this love, this bond, is the meaning  of not only the unity of which love binds, but of love itself. Meaning, as I envision it, is the ultimate reality <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> if I may call it "reality." Meaning is not just another cause, even if we consider it as the "first" cause, as Aristotle put it. Whatever Aristotle may have meant by "first cause," it is an unfortunate term, or translation of his term, as the ultimate, because the phrase still bears the connotation of cause <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> including effect; whereas, cause has to be totally eliminated in our minds to grasp even a hint of what is meant by Love or Meaning in its ultimate reality. And the closest metaphorical term I can think of at the present which conveys the concept of Love as being the bond (meaning) of the unity of all things, is "source." This concept leaves suspended in the mind as to exactly what it is or "does." But we know there is a distinction between it and the concept of "cause," however we may ever fail to grasp its meaning.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  You're treading deep waters here, and beginning to sink me.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  And this is where I'll stop; and leave it as a sketch to ponder at our leisure.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  For sure. What does come across, however valid or sound your philosophy of Love may be, is that it surely is transcendent of our reality.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Yes, and that is what I meant when I said that transcendence is love; and of course, vice versa.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  That's beautiful and very meaningful to me.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  It is, isn't it; and I could go into why it's meaningful to you, but I won't.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Please don't! I've had enough <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> except for one last point, to wrap up our discussion.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Go ahead.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Can you put all the pieces together that we've discussed so that I can get a composite picture to take with me?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>   Well, let me recapitulate as best I can. You originally asked what is your transcendence, and I answered that it is everything just and wise that you are. We then pursued that line of thought through a distinction between ego and self in relation to right action. Next, you asked why I didn't include love with just and wise in my statement about transcendence. This point led us to my identifying love with transcen- dence. Having settled that matter, I can now see that I haven't explained sufficiently enough why the two are identical.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Yes, that's what's missing in the completeness of all this.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Before I go into it, I can use a commonplace analogy regarding the planet Venus. We call it the "morning star" where we see it in the morning, and the "evening star" where we see it in the evening. So there are three names for  the same object with each name giving a different connotation. Is that clear?</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  It is.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Now regarding love and transcendence, I say that love is identical to transcendence inasmuch as both words refer, or connote, the same source, or essence. Love is transcendent inasmuch as it essentially "goes beyond" our reality of rational categories and perceptual experiences.</div> <div> <B>S.</B> I've got that; but how does this all relate to justice and wisdom?</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Well, if love is the source of everything, and we are part of everything, then love is the source of our being. Clear enough reasoning, right?</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  Right; yet I'm always a leery when reasoning is used to prove that which is beyond reasoning.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Rightfully so, Yet, for our purposes, let's place our trust in our reason; for remember what Aristotle said about it, that however small it may be compared to our whole nature, it nevertheless surpasses everything in value and importance, since it is the immortal part of us.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  You have that down well from memory. Yes, I'll go along with that.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Fine. Now, granting that love is our source, that it is the attractive force or power, or principle that binds all things together as one; then we can assume that we can participate in, or approximate, this source, this love, by attracting, rather than repelling, others, whether human or animal, and everything related to them.</div> <div> <B>S.</B>  That makes good sense.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Furthermore, in order for us to attract, and not repel, others, we cannot be governed by our ego predominantly, because it causes agitation, conflict, hostility, stress, and the like, which are destructive to relationships and our own well-being.</div> <div> <B>S.</B> True.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  So, back to the lessening of the ego that we discussed earlier; and with the ego out of the way, so to speak, we are more receptive to the truth of a situation or person, to yourself as well; and so are better able to understand that truth; and so, act rightly - which is to say, justly and wisely. And thereby we act in love; because justice and wisdom, truth and right, are transcendent of the ego. and this transcendence gives us a grace of being that we otherwise are not capable of consistently; since we then are acting more fully, more from our being, than from our little ego.</div> <div> <B>S.</B> That pretty much says it all, doesn't it.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  Again, only as a sketch. There are all kinds of problems involved in displacing the ego for our trans- cendence, or better said: our transcendence taking the ascendancy over our ego. There will always be the difficulty in knowing what the right thing to do is in various circumstances, as well as being able to do the right thing; though we will be better equipped to know it functioning more from our transcendence than from our ego. </div> <div> <B>S.</B>  At least in understanding our transcendent nature, we have the guidelines, a picture of <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> what should I call it? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> the transformation of our consciousness.</div> <div> <B>J.</B>  That's right. And then there is the perennial problem of evil both in others and in ourselves, and in life, that we have to come to terms with, and deal with. As I see it, that is the next stage of our conscious evolution.</div> <div> <B>S.</B> True. We desperately need a human balance with our transcendence to grapple with that problem - a human-transcendence, as I might call it.</div> <div> <B>J.</B> Perfect. And should this transformation take place in enough people, then one day there might be an ascendancy of justice and wisdom over injustice and ignorance.</div> <div> <B>S.</B> And then truly we'll have a "brave new world" to live in. </div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="a_postscript"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>A POSTSCRIPT</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Human-Transcendence as a Wisdom of Insecurity</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> This I asked my wife: What would it be like were I to live by my belief that everything is ordained Meaning? </div> <div>     I mean, if I <I>really </I>believed that everything is meant to be <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> and let me add: and if it were <I>true? </I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT><I> </I>then why would I be so quietly anxious all the time: about my work, about my family, about others, about security? Why not just flow with life, as it is, as it must be? </div> <div>      "Monumental questions," as my wife put it; and added, were probably impossible to answer. ...Ah, a challenge! Impossible, did she say? </div> <div>     And so I armor myself for another transcendent quest. </div> <bR> <div> This thought comes to me: The new warrior of the soul: He-she who combats fatigue, inertia, impatience, irritability, insecurity in order to be more than self <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial Narrow" >--</FONT> to simply <I>be whatever is! </I></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>A</B> <B>Dialogue of Meaning</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>An Invocation </B></div> <div> With truth in one pocket and faith in the other Let us face the unknown. </div> <div> Let us leap into our destiny: </div> <div> to circumvent the law of supply and demand, </div> <div> to overwhelm the <I>rule </I>of the few over the many, to wrestle the inertia of passivity, </div> <div> to penetrate the blind force of will. </div> <div> Let us be worthy </div> <div> Let us be mighty. </div> <div> Let us be warriors of the soul. </div> <bR> <div> <I>But how? </I></div> <div> Enact your noblest deeds from your profoundest need.</div> <div> <I>How? </I></div> <div> Set aside security.</div> <div> <I>In place of what? </I></div> <div> For the wisdom of <I>insecurity. </I></div> <div> <I>And let my children starve? </I></div> <div> Your children will not hunger. </div> <div> <I>Guarantee me that. </I></div> <div> There are no guarantees. </div> <div> <I>I can't live with that. </I></div> <div> And in that way your children starve. </div> <div> <I>For what? </I></div> <div> For the succor of your strength. </div> <div> <I>Security, then, is weakness? </I></div> <div> Not weakness, but death. </div> <div> <I>Of what? </I></div> <div> The instincts of life. </div> <div> <I>Which are? </I></div> <div> To live by tooth and nail. </div> <div> <I>Like a savage, an animal</I>? </div> <div> A<I> human </I>animal. </div> <div> <I>War, then? </I></div> <div> Precisely. War against your enemy. </div> <div> <I>Which is? </I></div> <div> Your security. </div> <div> <I>So I am to live in pain and fear?</I></div> <div> <I>You do any way.</I></div> <div> <I> In my security? </I></div> <div> In the dread of losing that security. </div> <div> <I>Dread? </I></div> <div> The dread of desolation--the more security, the more dread. </div> <div> <I>Am I then not to be secure? </I></div> <div> Oh, yes, you are to be, by all means; but to live insecurely in that security </div> <div> <I>In dread, then. </I></div> <div> No, in wisdom. </div> <div> <I>What wisdom? </I></div> <div> The wisdom of insecurity. </div> <div> <I>You're speaking in riddles. </I></div> <div> Yes, in the riddle of human life. </div> <div> <I>Solve it for me. </I></div> <div> And would its nswer be the ultimate security, for you? </div> <div> <I>It could also be the ultimate insecurity, depending upon the answer. </I></div> <div> And now you yourself have come to the wisdom of insecurity, of which I speak. </div> <div> <I>How did I do that? </I></div> <div> There are no answers, you see, despite <I>all </I>the answers.</div> <div> <I>Another riddle? </I></div> <div> A particular answer solves a particular question in the realm of the rational mind. The <I>mind (or rationale) </I