In my next series of posts I start investigating the theoretical and practical underpinnings of Eastern (Asian) Religious ideas. After I sit in on a Mysticism class I add another series of posts on the Existential aspect of these kinds of religious teachings. Later still, I talk about the Lotus Sutra and Tibetan Buddhism, and all this takes place before I begin my West Coast Bicycle trip. During this period, I also meet a young lady who, for a brief time moves in with me. In short, I believe the next month or so of posts will strike most readers as—pretty dry!
My West Coast Bicycle trip, I believe, was the most interesting of my adventures. I continued to develop my life philosophy on that trip and, upon completion, my journal turns into a kind of dialogue with MV (a Faust/Mephistopheles type dialogue) which, in turn, dovetails into my last bicycle trip—a return to Quebec and Canadian Maritime Provinces.
What’s left? Well, what’s left is the philosophy that ties my theoretical investigations together, i.e., the answers to the questions that I’ve raised while traveling life’s highway (see the last paragraph for a brief description of what my philosophy/religion entails). Obviously, I am still talking about a long journey here, and, to be frank, I do not think my life is exceptional, -- or even that fascinating. My journey is just one out of all the countless billions out there; thus, I feel privileged to have anyone read just one of my posts, --but my heartfelt thanks goes out to all who have signed on to this blog.
The problem is that what connects God to humans also separates humans from “self” (self as the implicative affirmative of the not-me-self). Free will and self-consciousness, however, follow from this separation. We have the “option to choose,” and, of course, choice carries with it a lifetime of baggage which determines “how we choose.” Nevertheless, choice falls between good and evil and if per chance it should land in the neighborhood of evil, civilization provides law and order to counter harm and mayhem. Again, in terms of freedom’s dialectic, the ~b of ~bb at the level of b~b~bb is the source of meaningful symbol creation, which, in turn, opened the door to the creation of language, myth, religion, art, theoretical knowledge, and the rest of the civilizing processes that we call civilization. This ongoing self-liberation is not only embedded in civilization, it is also embedded in the aesthetic continuum and it is here that the true meaning of life will ultimately be found. The gorgeous sunset that sometimes swells our eyes to tears is not just a product of the spinning earth; it is also part of the spontaneous, pulsating, emotion that flows from the whole of the aesthetic continuum. Inspiration for the poet, painter, and musician comes not from cerebral musings, but rather from the empowering emotion that inspires life, imagination, and awe. The strength and resolve necessary to create a better world is not found in analysis and calculation, but rather in the empowering emotion that calls us to love, beauty and truth. The immediately grasped, emotionally moving ground out of which all things arise–the aesthetic component of our experience–beckons us to seek the impossible, express the unspeakable, and imagine the inconceivable. The ~b of ~bb at the level of b~b~bb, — or the voice of the devil in my story—is the voice of Divinity made whole in consciousness, and, as such, this voice is not the traditional voice of Lucifer, Satan, or the Devil. This soul-stealing demon of tradition, rather, was the imagined product of wandering nomads lost in the desert many millenniums ago, or so says Randy Newman in his Rock Opera Faust, and I agree. However, imagination itself is a product of the ~b of ~bb, so, to put a more wholesome spin on the plight of the wandering nomads, one could say that the voice of Divinity, via the imagination, was admonishing consciousness not to stray from the divine path. Again, self-consciousness and imagination are component aspects of the voice of Divinity, but, in the general parlance of dialogue, the word typically used to reference that voice is “conscience.” However, Divinity has a more direct and powerful voice. Divinity (when it truly speaks) speaks through the language of love.
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