The Cosmos is a place of order, structure and patterns which in Chinese philosophy goes by the ‘name’/human pointer the Tao.

All things exist because there is this order/structure/pattern which is the fundamental thing – which we may as well call the Tao.  Although the words Infinite Divine, Ayn Sof, Brahman, and many others can work also.  It is just that the word Tao conveys to me order, pattern and structure most directly.  It conveys both a natural and supernatural connotation of this concept.

Now this fundamental unity is manifest in the form of a yin/yang complementary duality, where one is co-existent with the other.

I posted a picture of what I called the Tree of Life and Knowledge it shows the three basic and fundamental pairs of co-existent dualities:

Dynamic (Energy) (Active) (Yang) / Static (Matter) (Receptive) (Yin)
Exterior (Out)/Interior (In)
Whole/Part

The idea of the universal Tao as the One which has the form of manifestation as a co-existent duality describes the foundation of physics and metaphysics.

I am hypothesizing that Energy alone as a singular purity doesn’t exist by and of itself alone.  That energy has no inherent ability to hold or create order, structure or patterns.  That energy has a form which has structure, order and pattern because of and as a result of its static manifesting aspect/nature which we call matter.

Matter doesn’t exist by and of itself alone.  Energy only takes on patterns through the existence of matter which holds and creates the patterns that affect and manifest in waves of energy – I am describing the interactional necessity of the two.

I am also positing that mind or soul does not exist by and of itself.  That mind and soul come into existence through the co-existent dual nature of matter.  Mind and soul are embodied in and through matter.  Mind and soul are the ‘energy’ aspects of matter.

Pattern, order and structure which is the essence of the Tao is fundamental and is the one that manifests itself in the duality of matter and energy = mind and body.

For many believers their world and their worldview are built upon the premise that there is one true faith; which is of course their own. They have a difficult time imagining a world that is not so constructed. They assume that everyone knows that there is one true faith and that theirs is that faith. They some time formulate this presentation as an equation: One God = One Truth. 
 
I, for reasons I will explain shortly, offer a more accurate equation to symbolically illustrate the nature of the Divine and Truth. It is this: Infinite God = Infinite Truths. 
 
As Lewis Carroll wrote, ‘ “When I use a word”, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less…The question is which is to be the master – that’s all.” ’ Meaning the author of the words has used those to convey an idea that is present in her mind therefore the words are meant to point to the author’s intent.

Thus with the statement: One God = One Truth. The idea of God being assumed is the one that has been ground into the author’s sunglasses – it is the author’s conception of the Divine based on her worldview and belief system. So too with the words ‘One Truth’, it also is a pointer to the system of beliefs of the author, who is asserting that her understanding of ‘Truth’ is the same as the Cosmic and Ultimate conception of Truth which comes directly from her ‘One God’. 

I can across the statement ‘One God = One Truth’ in varying Yahoo discussion groups. I have come across the statement from the postings of a Catholic Christian, a Protestant Christian, a Hindu, and a Gnostic. 
 
The statement is a symbol which points at the beliefs of the author. As a symbol it is a vessel waiting to be filled. It is a container that will hold meaning when the user or the listener/reader puts their meaning into the equation – to put their beliefs into the word ‘God’ and the words ‘Truth’. 
 
Each user means to convey by that statement that the set of beliefs that they believe in is the ‘One Truth’ being pointed at in the equation. Which becomes rather amusing, since what the statement purports to demonstrate is that there is only one truth and yet the statement is being used by so many different believers of so many different sets of beliefs and thus ‘truths’. 
 
It is the inherent bias of each author/reader  ‘Rose colored glasses’, their sets of beliefs that are preventing them from seeing the ‘joke’. It is because they have no familiarity with the concept of ‘People shape, and are shaped by, ideas.’, that they fail to imagine that there is a world beyond their viewpoint, beyond the bias inherent in their ‘tinted glasses’. They assume that their ideas and beliefs can be and are inherent in the world beyond their mind. When in actuality they are projecting those beliefs into the world outside of their mind.
 
When the Hindu/Gnostic/Jewish/Christian author is using the equation she is unconsciously implying that the ‘One God’ and the “One Truth’ in the equation matches up with her own beliefs.

It has been my experience that when I point this out by replying to their postings on the web groups, they are allows astonished and get upset that I could propose that their beliefs are not the one truth. Each and every time, they claim that it is I who am mistaken. They assert that there is only one god and thus there is only one truth, and by that they mean that the only valid and true conception of god is the one they believe in and thus the only one truth is the one that they believe in, all others are false. 
 
I will, as I have on my Internet encounters, try to explain further why this ‘One God = One Truth’ is in actuality a finite human idea and thus not pointing towards the infinite. 
 
Let’s start with something simple. One is a finite number, and is by common definition pointing at a meaning of a singular finite idea. It is important to realize that it is a universal idea that is presented in the writings of mystics the world over that the Divine is an infinite which is by Its nature is fundamentally unknown and unknowable by finite humans. 
 
The idea that the Divine is unknowable is often stated by the mystics and then ignored, since almost immediately after presenting this idea the mystic then goes on to map out a description of what is the nature of the Divine and what is the nature of the human beings relation and purpose in accordance with the understanding that mystic received from the Divine. In doing so, mystics often do not preface their remarks by saying ‘This is my opinion.” But instead fails to do so and allows the reader/listener to conclude that the mystic is presenting a statement of Divine Truth. When in actuality it is merely a statement of the mystic’s own personal gleanings of the Divine truths. 
 
For if the Divine is unknowable and beyond human comprehension then it follows that any further statement describing the Divine is an attempt to describe what was previously concluded as indescribable.

We humans can not abide chaos and unknowns; we strive to make the unknown knowable. Thus we are driven to explain and comprehend everything we encounter. The Mystic is caught by this conflict, the knowledge that the Divine is beyond understanding and the need to understand.

What the mystics fail to do is put their remarks into the appropriate context; that context being the realization that what follows is the opinion of a single human being on the basis of that individual’s encounter with the Infinite Divine. 
 
What I am stating is that despite the fact that every human has the potential to connect directly with the Infinite Divine and despite the fact that every human has either a spark of the Divine, a Divine soul, or is made up of and made from the Divine – there is an inherent
division between that human – Divine connection and the ability of the finite human to articulate the understandings that may come from that connection. I am stating that the Divine created the universe in such a manner that even the Divine is limited by the nature of
this universe when the Divine choose to interact in this universe. 
 
To illustrate: you could choose to construct a cabin that resembles the one in which Henry David Thoreau built in 1845 at Walden pond, Massachusetts. But having done this, you the creator should not be surprised that there is no electricity hooked up to the cabin. This is not an act of ‘stupidity’ or error but a deliberate limitation imposed by choosing to build a cabin to the specifications of Thoreau’s 1845 cabin. I am presuming the same thing, that the Infinite Divine acting as the creator of this Universe built it in accordance with certain specifications and thus built it with physical limitations, such as the limit of the speed at which an object with mass may travel. This limitation is called ‘the speed of light’.

 
Another limitation, and for the purpose of this discussion, one of primary importance is the capacity and the workings of the human embodied mind. The human mind has limitations on its ability to recognize and accept information. Specifically an individual will not recognize and not accept or acknowledge information that contradicts or conflicts with prior foundational sets of beliefs and values. Thus, any information in the vast collection of infinite information available to the mystic, or any human being, in its encounter with the Infinite Divine will have to go through the finite human minds filtering system. 
 
Therefore not only will most of the infinite be filtered out, since the human is only a finite creature, but that what amount of finite information that does not get ignored will still be filtered through the individuals value system and sets of beliefs – what will get in will only be that which does not contradict in some manner what beliefs and values the individual already has accepted. 
 
Now, given that an individual has a multitude of values and beliefs and that these are quite possibly contradictory and conflicted, there is a potential that this new information will type the scale and the individual will change and grow – new ideas and new values will emerge that had some basis in the previous collection of values. Whether or not the individual changes or not depends on how flexible and dynamic the value and belief system the individual has built up. In general the more static and rigid the values and beliefs are adhered to; the more unlikely that anything new will challenge or contradict the old ideas. 
 
Now, I am not describing the nature of the Divine, but rather the nature of the limits of the human embodied mind and the limits of the universe, with the addition of one of the few universal human cultural concepts, that being the idea that the Infinite Divine is beyond the
capacity of human understanding. I am elucidating those two negative premises and facts. 
 
It is useful to state what Alfred Korzybski wrote about the usefulness of starting from a negative premise: ‘The status of negative premise is much more important and secure to start with than that of the positive…’ By starting with the negative you present those who would challenge you to deny the negative and to prove that the Divine is comprehensible and that there are no limitations to the workings of the universe and or the workings of the embodied human mind. A formidable task if not an impossible one. 
 
Thus the statement ‘One God = One Truth’, is shown to be a finite unstated opinion about the nature of the Divine. It depends upon unstated and unspecified human
definition of ‘God’ and ‘God’s Truth’. The assertion is a finite presentation of an opinion of a finite human mind or collection of finite human beliefs.

Where as the statement ‘Infinite Divine = infinite truths’, is an open ended statement which clearly points to the fact that no specific finite definitions or characteristics have been presented and thus it is an admission of the negative, that the Divine being Infinite is beyond the finite. The second is therefore more accurate.

Let’s review again how Descartes shaped our collective inheritance, the rose colored glasses that are western cultures mythos and logos.

Since Descartes failed to realize that he was shaped by the ideas that became his rose colored glasses, his map given to him by his enculturation into the society into which he was born and raised, he cannot compensate for that bias.  He created a divide that did not necessarily need to be and he passed on his map to others.  They who came after him also failing to understand the process of being shaped by ideas and that those shaping ideas affect how they subsequently shape for themselves new ideas, they accepted Descartes map.

They take his map and make it a part of their rose colored glasses.  And we have inherited Descartes map.  The split between Mind and Body/ Mind and Matter/ Inner reality and External reality, is the reinforced by Descartes.

To get ahead of our story, Kant projected this split outward and inward and said that this divide is the nature of our ability to understand everything.  We are stuck Kant said on this divide between the external world, the thing-in-itself he called the Noumenon and all that we can know of the world, our mind’s internal map, which is our experience of this noumenon, the thing that is known, the Phenomenon.

But all of these maps are human creations and inventions therefore they are probably not completely accurate.  We can and must question the maps we inherit.  We can do so only when we realize the process of how we are shaped by ideas.

Let us explore the maps of Immanuel Kant  by very briefly outlining his contribution to our present day A-logic map of the Kosmos.

‘According to Kant, the reading of [David] Hume’s work had awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber”.’   This being the case before we get to Kant’s map let us examine David Hume’s map .

‘To begin his analysis, Hume made distinction between sensory impressions and ideas: Sensory impressions are the basis of any knowledge….  Ideas are faint copies of those impressions.  One can experience through the sense an impression of the color blue, and on the basis of this impression one can have an idea of that color whereby the latter can be recalled.’  [From Richard Tarnas: The Passion of the Western Mind, p.337]

‘If the mind analyzes its experience without preconception, it must recognize that in fact all its supposed knowledge is based on a continuous chaotic volley of discrete sensations, and that on these sensations the mind imposes an order of its own.  The mind draws from its experience an explanation that in fact derives from the mind itself, not from the experience.  The mind cannot really know what causes the sensations, for it never experiences “cause” as a sensation.’ [Tarnas, p. 337]

Hume was presenting a map that outlined how we create cause out of an association of x impression repeatedly being following by y impression.  Hume believes that it is this association, the close proximity of x and y and the assumed relationship based on the proximity, is the sole basis of the idea of cause.   Hume does not believe that cause and effect can are ever proven or experienced.  Hume believed that knowledge could only be based on facts, the stuff of sensory impressions.  But if causation is not something we ever see but it is an assumption, an idea that we make up out of proximity in time of sensory events, than all human knowledge is only a human’s opinion of what s/he thinks is going on.

‘One can perceive the regularity of events, but not their necessity.  The latter is no more than a subjective feeling induced by the experience of apparent regularity.  In such a context, science is possible, but it is a science of the phenomenal only, of appearances registered in the mind, and its certainty is a subjective one, determined not by nature but by human psychology.’ [Tarnas, p. 339]

‘But for Hume, not only was the human mind less than perfect, it could never claim access to the world’s order, which could not be said to exist apart from the mind.  That order was not inherent in nature, but was the result of the mind’s own associating tendencies.’ [Tarnas, 340]

This was the map Kant was trying to compare to the territory.  Kant begins his monumental work The Critique of Pure Reason stating:

‘That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.  …But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience.  For…it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself…’ [Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, pg. 1 of the introduction, 1781, translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn]

Kant wanted to believe in the idea that humans could know the world, and this knowing was summarized in science, but he recognized from Hume that experience, the only true source of knowledge never presents us with cause and effect the foundation upon which science is based.  Kant resolved this contradiction in the dense prose of his Critique of Pure Reason.

In the Critique of Pure Reason ‘Kant expresses deep dissatisfaction with the idealistic and seemingly skeptical results of the empirical lines of inquiry.  In each case, Kant gives a number of arguments to show that Locke’s, Berkeley’s, and Hume’s empiricist positions are untenable because they necessarily presupposes the very claims they set out to disprove.  In fact, any coherent account of how we perform even the most rudimentary mental acts of self-awareness and making judgments about objects must presuppose these claims, Kant argues.’ [Matt McCormick, pg 3 of 19, Immanuel Kant Metaphysics, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantmeta.htm]

For Hume the fact that ideas like cause and effect is an idea of the disembodied mind, a mind separated from the body by the constructs of Descartes, is a terrible thing that undercuts our faith in human’s ability to understand the world.  But Kant ultimately turns this negative into a positive; Kant agrees that some ideas, like cause and effect, are not found in nature but are instead are products of the disembodied mind.  They are foundational ideas of the disembodied mind – A Priori ideas.

‘For in Kant’s view, the nature of the human mind is such that it does not passively receive sense data.  Rather, it actively digests and structures them, and man therefore knows objective reality precisely to the extent that the reality conforms to the fundamental structures of the mind.’ [Tarnas, p. 343]

Kant established that it was only through the A-Priori ideas of ‘Space’, ‘Time’, ‘Cause and Effect’, ‘Substance’, ‘Quantity’ and ‘Relation’, etc., that the human mind was capable of discerning the external world through the sense.  That Science worked because of the A-Priori constructs inherent in the human mind.  Kant thus presumed and concluded that humans ‘could know things only as they appeared to him, and not as they were in themselves.’   Kant concluded that we saw and knew only the phenomenon and not the noumenon.

Noumenon and phenomenon was an A-logic opposition similar to Descartes mind – body opposition.   We need to go beyond this A-logic map; we need a Null-A logic map.

To get to that map, recall that Kant stated that these A-Priori ideas were a part of the mind, but for Kant that mind has no reference in or foundation in a body – his it is a disembodied mind.  He knew they must exist and they were the only basis for human’s ability to comprehend and perceive the external world.  But if these A-Priori ideas do exist they must exist somewhere other than some fantasy world of platonic ideals, and we should require something other than a nebulous statement that they exists in the disembodied mind.  We must describe the how and the why of their existence in the mind.

I believe that these A-Priori ideas are inherent in the very fabric and structure of the human body, our ‘computer system’.  You had presumably no trouble with the data on the computer having order inherent in it and you had no trouble accepting the fact that the computer works because inherent in it is a physical order in all that stuff inside the computer box, its speakers, its monitors and so on.  Thus why should it be hard to accept that order is directly built into the biological sensory apparatus in conjunction with the biology of the nervous system that culminates in the brain’s neural network?   This biology of the body ultimately gives rise to the workings of the mind.  It is the body’s order and inherent structure that is the origin of and the place where the A-Priori ideas stem from.  The mind directly knows these A-Priori ideas because it is the way the biology of the senses and the nervous system work.

The body has this structure because it, the body, is a natural part of the physical universe.  The physical universe has an inherent structure that imposes that structure on the body.  Thus the body is orderly because the universe itself is orderly.

The universe exists not in chaos but in an orderly manner because at its core the universe is built upon order.

The universe has beating within its core order and structure.  This order and structure is known by many names, one of which is the name given to it by Lao Tzu: The Tao.  Another of name has been give to it by Robert Pirsig: Quality.  The Vedic sacred scriptures name it: Brahman.  The Jewish Kabbalists name it: Ayn Sof.

Therefore Kant is in error when he states that we cannot see the actual universe we can only see the model of the universe created out of the interaction of the mind with the world, created by sense data filtered through the A-Priori ideas.  In actuality we can directly perceive the order of the universe.

We can directly perceive the universe because we are a part of the universe that is built upon the order and structure known as Tao/Quality.  Tao/Quality is the source.  Tao/Quality is order and structure.  Tao/Quality is the ultimate A-Priori inherent not only in our mind/body but in all stuff out of which everything is.

Kant created a riddle by leaving the location of A-Priori ideas in the disembodied conception of the mind.  Kant could state that we cannot directly perceive the universe because he knew we could perceive and comprehend what we perceived only on the basis of disembodied A-Priori ideas.

But now we know that the source of the A-Priori ideas is embodied in the Tao/Quality order inherent in the physical nature of all things.  Perception and comprehension is a small part of the Tao/Quality looking out at the rest of the large Tao/Quality.  We are the subject and the object.  We are Tao/Quality/Brahman/Ayn Sof perceiving ourselves.

Ironically we seem to have returned to Bishop Berkeley’s map that the world is an orderly place because it is sustained and created in the mind of God.  This religious Idealist solution Hume rejected and it was this rejection was the impetus to Hume’s analysis and map making. 

But we have not returned to Berkeley’s map.  Berkeley placed order as an idea that exists in the mind of God.  I have placed order in the structure of the body of God.  That ‘body of God’ is also known as the bounded infinite Universe.  The bounded infinite universe is the territory we are always trying to map.

Order is not merely in our maps; it is not something we made up.  We experience order directly because we are a part of the territory.  Order is inherent in the territory.

My initial vision was the 3 fold path inspired by the 3 main characters in the Garden tale, Eve, Adam and Lilith.  Each, being Taoist, has a unity of differing traits.

Adam – the 2 valued scientist
Eve – multi valued mystic
Lilith – the Magician

Eve is centered on acknowledging the Holon; and her role to play as part of the holarchy of life.  Lilith is centered on herself – freedom of the individual – she is also split off into a hierarchal system.  Lilith is the twin of Eve, she is the active, while Eve is the receptive.  Adam is fixated in figuring things out – but separates them all into static parts.  Eve and Lilith figure things out but recognize them as dynamic.

Thus our challenge in life is to incorporate all these perspectives into a balance unity, each serve a part in the grand scheme of things.  Alone they will create disharmony – together they lead to harmony.

Hopefully you have read my essay/tale of the garden – it will give you a glimpse into my view of the story.

   How it is a tale of ‘the parent’ – the divine, trying to raise Her children to become adults – and how the divine fails.

  All of them, God/Divine, Lilith, Eve, and Adam are all inexperienced in this tale – just starting out in their respective roles, and thus messing up.

  The Parent creating this elaborate setting as a challenge and not having the patience to wait for results and lacking the faith to wait – hence the serpent is placed into the Garden.  The responses of Lilith, Eve and Adam, all out of the experiences of being inexperienced youths – Lilith not wanting to work things out – just gets up and leaves.  Eve panics with self-doubt when confronted by her divine parent.  Adam because he just goes along for the ride and not thinking that he should make up his own mind, is the follower and therefore doesn’t take responsibility for his actions.

That’s enough for now…comments?

The beginning of Wisdom is the willingness to consider that you may be mistaken; mistaken in your perceptions, your conclusions and your beliefs - which all things pass through like a filter.

Let me back up and start with something deceptively simple: Time.  In the real world of physical reality processes, events, take time.  Things do not occur instantaneously, although they may seem to.  Even light traveling at its remarkably fast speed still is a measurable movement.  There is actually a brief moment for events, even those in the body, to occur.  Once you recognize and acknowledge that nothing is instantaneous you can begin to conceive and imagine the how and when of processes occurring.  And then you have to account for these events.

For example, right now at this moment you have awareness of reading these words and comprehending their meaning.  Now look at the printed page and realize that they are shapes of ink upon a page.  Now feel the book in your hands.  Notice its weight and texture.  Feel the seat upon which you sit.  Look around you and listen to what is around you.

While you were reading you were not paying attention to the shape of the letters, the color of the print, the color of the paper, nor of the texture of the book, or any aspect of your body and the room around you.  The act of reading brought your focus into the act of comprehending symbols on a page.  And yet, it was a simple and easy task to shift your awareness to the experience of being somewhere sitting and holding this book.  That is how conscious thought works.

Conscious thought is the act of, and experience of, awareness.  You can focus your awareness so intently on one thing that awareness of everything else, even your own body, can be forgotten.  This is what you were doing when you are engaged in reading the words in this book.  But you can pull back and become aware of all sorts of physical experiences accompanying that process of reading.  You can go from the one to the other.  In a real instant and measurable movement in time you can go back and forth.

So, to begin with certainty, you know that you have a series of sensory and sensual experiences, the experience of reading these words, or the experience of seeing the book, or the experience of feeling your own body sitting on a chair and being in or at someplace, all taking place in a temporal sequence.  It is because of, and as a result of, this certainty that you have an awareness of these sensory and sensual experiences that you therefore know with certainty that you exist.

To recall and reframe Rene Descartes famous quote, I would say that: I experience therefore I am.  And it is important to note that the explanation of why you have the capacity to experience anything at all is a direct result of you inhabiting, or being a thing with, a body, you have an embodied mind.

I begin with the nonverbal Experiences of sensations while Descartes begins with the verbal thought and thinking.  Koestler agrees:
‘As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe.  The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of ‘mind’ with conscious thought.’ [Koestler, Act of Creation, pg. 148]

That is exactly what I have been trying to make clear.  In actuality first we have an experience that is before words and is felt.  Feelings and sensations are not yet words.  It is only when we try to understand what it was that just happened, when we try to reflect on our sensations and to understand what it was that we experienced in the past that we leave the realm of sensations.  That is when we translate the nonverbal sensations of the experience into verbal comprehension.  That is when we get words that are thinking and thoughts.  We go from experience to thought.  We go first from a mental experience of sensations to rational conscious thoughts formed in words.  We experience first then we think.

This shift is incredibly important and was over looked by Descartes.  He failed to or was unable to recognize that there was a process that takes time that is going on.  His failing to consider this process of going from nonverbal to verbal created a cascading series of errors and fallacies.  To work our way out of these errors and fallacies we need to acknowledge the process of experiencing being without words and then attempting to understand the experience is to utilize words.  This fact Korzybski established as one of his foundations upon which to build his Null-A systems.

If the difference between nonverbal experience and the verbal understanding need even more reinforcement, you can demonstrate this by doing the following.  Reach over with one hand and grab a bit of skin on your other arm.  Now pinch that skin tightly between the two fingers of your hand.  Keep pinching until you feel some discomfort.  Now, what just happened?  You caused yourself to experience pain, if only slightly.  Reflect on this.  Is it not true that you felt the pain in silence?  Did not your feeling of pain occurred without any words.  You felt the movements of your body, the touch of your fingers on your skin, the touch of your fingers applying pressure as it squeezed that bit of skin until you experienced an unpleasant sensation.  All of that occurred without any words forming in your mind.  Words came after you felt the sensation.  Words came as you reflected back on what you just did.  Reflecting on that event you realized that what you felt has been described by the human word: pain.

This is what I have been telling you, that is how it always is.  You see things, you smell things, you hear things, you feel the touch of things, and you taste something you put into your mouth.  All these sensory events are experienced first in an instance without words.  Words come after that sensory event.

True, first there is silence and then after some process and out of this process comes the song.  You need to be absolutely sure of this.  It is extremely important to fully and accurately understand the nature of human reality.  So, let’s do another experiment.  I want you to get a nosh, a little something to eat.  This will work with anything you eat but I’m going to take a bite out of an apple.  So, perhaps you can grab an apple also and take a bite.  If nothing else, recall the memory of biting into and eating an apple.

Look at the apple.  Bring it to your nose and smell it.  Now bite into it.  Chew that piece of apple in your mouth and swallow it.  Now look again at the apple where you bit into it, smell that spot.  This experience borders on the mystical.  It is a fleeting moment of delight.

Now, what just happened?  By asking that question I have activated your mind and opened the floodgates to words.  The event of eating the apple was alive.  Even the memory of that event has some life in it.  The event and the memory of the event are like a well, from which you can keep return to draw up water.  The water in this metaphor is words.  You can describe the event of eating the apple with as many or as few words as you choose.  It is a matter of focus and talent.

The event can be a source of almost unending collection of words.

We can describe the apple as green.  Or as bright green, or as green as sun lit spring grass at noon, or as green flecked with spots of captured sunlight, or on and on I could go.  Adding more and more words to try and capture the experience.  The flesh of the apple: Was it hard or soft?  Soft and pulpy?  Hard and crisp?  Did the apple taste sweet or tart?  Or a mixture of the two?

Do the words do justice to the experience?  Do they seem adequate?  Do they leave you as satisfied as the actually eating of the apple?  They cannot.  Eating the apple will fill your soul and your body in ways that reading or speaking about eating an apple cannot equal.  Words can satisfy your mind, and perhaps offer some crumbs to the soul, but they offer no solace for your body.  Keep returning to the well and draw up more water out of which come more words.  But the words by themselves are sterile.  Reflecting upon them only gives you more words.   Reflecting on words is to define the meaning of words.  Reflecting on words is not focusing on the experience, the event.  Reflecting on words is examining the experience, the event.  To use another metaphor: singing a song is not the same as analyzing the meaning of the song.

By now you should be convinced that experience is not the same as words.  Experience is before words.

Experience is the silence.  Out of the process of comprehending that experience we sing our song.

Getting back to fundamentals and foundational references, in addition to time there is of course space, the three dimensions – vertical, horizontal, and depth.  There is also a sense of inside and outside, inside your mind and outside of your mind.  And of course everything all around you has an inside and outside dimension to it.  Thus, we live in this four-dimensional referenced physical space-time that can be vectored and mapped by eight vertices: inside, outside, vertical, horizontal, depth, and time with its present, past and future.

Within that physical world are objects and things which came into being not by the actions of humans but are products of the natural world.  The natural world is by its definition a world of things not made by humans, a world of things and objects that can be classified as belonging to the genus of mineral, vegetable or animal.

Yet we obviously also live in another world of physical objects and things.  A humanly created world of physical objects such as tools, objects of art, furniture, buildings, vehicles, roads, etc.  These are the physical objects of human society. These objects are made out of and from the nonhuman physical objects of mineral, vegetable, animal and materials humanly made, previously not existing in nature before the creation by humans, materials made out of plastic, etc.

We live not only in this physical environment but also in a temporal environment.  Our physical environment, of five vectored spatial dimensions, is a geographical location which may have rivers, valleys, flat plains, hills, mountains, trees, plants, animals, buildings, roads, etc.  We, and all that stuff, also exist in a temporal dimension and environment with three vectors.   Time seems to start when we are born and stop when we die.  But we are not so egocentric as to ignore the fact that everything has existed before we got here and will continue to do so after we are gone.  We know this and we experience the effects of time on our surroundings and on ourselves.

And we cannot overlook that we humans also live, colloquially speaking, through our heads, through our minds.  Everything starts off entering our bodies through our physical senses, but when it comes to understanding any of it, we are trapped in our mind, in our limited first person perspective.  We live in this fifth dimension.  This fifth dimension is perhaps the most important of all, the dimension of humanly crafted symbols.  We live through words.  We can think thoughts that are images, we can feel sensations and emotions, but anytime we try to understand any of it, we come up against words; a world our making which is contained in the world of our culture’s language system.  The language we think and speak with is itself an environment that can also be described by using the metaphors of space and time.

We are all products of human culture.  To be human is to live and be a member of a human culture and society.  If you can read and speak a human language you are a member of a human society, a human culture.

My seminal phrase: ‘People shape, and are shaped by, ideas’, is a description of what Peter Berger calls: world construction or world building.   Here is Peter Berger’s seminal idea:

‘Every human society is an enterprise of world-building.’ [Berger, Sacred Canopy, pg. 3]

’  ‘Society is a dialectic phenomenon in that it is a human product, and nothing but a human product, that yet continuously acts back its producer.’ [Berger, Sacred Canopy, pg. 3]

‘The fundamental dialectic process of society consists of three moments, or steps.  These are externalization, objectivation, and internalization.  Only if these three moments are understood together can an empirically adequate view of society be maintained.’ [Berger, Sacred Canopy, pg. 4]

Externalization is a fancy word to describe the fact that what we human beings do is make stuff.  Some of that stuff is tangible physical objects and some of that stuff is intangible words, symbols and ideas.  Out of all that stuff we build our world.  We first internally conceive of an act of creation and then we go about creating something.  It is the creating that externalizes our internal conceptions.

Once we have finished the process of creation then we have made and object be it tangible or intangible.  It is by creating that we make stuff, objects, which has a physical component, buildings, books, computers, hammers, pencils, nails, paint brushes, clothes, paintings, music, books, etc, and intangible stuff or objects such as words, ideas, symbols, etc.  By the act of creation we humans create something that another human being can encounter and interact with and that we the creator can also encounter and interact with.   The result of our act of creation is to make an object that then becomes separate from the creator.  This is what Berger means by objectivation.  Objectivation is a fancy description of the act of making an object that is separate from its human creator.

Internalization is the process that occurs when we encounter and interact with those humanly made objects.  We take into ourselves their use and their meaning.  We make them a part of our personal external and internal environment.  The process all children under go from the moment of birth is a process of internalization, a process of socialization and enculturation.  We learn our society’s language and thus its culture.  It becomes an internal part of us and the acquisition of a human language enables us to form thoughts.  That human language defines how we formulate our thoughts.  This process of learning and then utilizing that learning is the process of internalization – the process I describe by the metaphor of rose colored glasses.

Every act of communication is an act of externalization.  Every act of communication besides conveying information, no matter how trivial, is also an act that helps to sustain and maintain a human culture and a human society.

Participants in a society live their life within the context of a specific society.  The history of every specific society is built upon episodes within the biography of the life of the society’s participants and members.  Society is metaphorically the first tool and first product of the early primates who began the transition from the animal into the proto-human.

Ever since then society was an external reality that preceded and survive its members and participants.  Society and as a results of the enculturation of the individual in the society is how a human becomes a person.  Infants at birth are potential humans, they are potential members of society and as they are raised, taught and interact by and with their parents, siblings and elders those infants become members of a specific society and thus take on an individual identity defined by the context of that society.

This is the process of people being shaped by ideas.

In the Talmudic tractate The Saying of Our Fathers an important insight of Rabbi Hillel, who lived during the 1st century of the Common Era, was recorded.

"If I am not for myself, who will be?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
And if not now, when?"

Here is a begining essay describing my picture of a metaphysical metaphors that serves as the seed for a Philosopher’s Qabalah.

The Rabbinic mystics saw the Divine, the universe and themselves through the lens that they created, this mystical map called the Sefiroth in Hebrew and also called The Tree of Life.  I believe it is the tree that was in the center of Gan Eden – I call it the Tree of Life and Knowledge.

The sefiroth is a macrocosmic and microcosmic holon.  A holon is a conceptual model that describes all things.  It is the realization that all things can be seen and described as being simultaneously both a part and a whole, a whole unit which together with other units make up a greater whole and is itself a unity made up of smaller parts, and so on.  Holons are arranged holarchically i.e. as a hierarchy of holons.  Holarchies encompass the totality of the universe whether one searches its upper or lower limits.

Here is my Qabalah map.

Ayn Sof= Robert Pirsig’s Quality, Lao Tsu’s Tao, the Territory

Keter=Intention, Silence, pre-verbal Will, the Mystery, Pirsig’s Event, Pre-verbal experience.  The Territory that is waiting to be explored.

Pirsig’s Romantic Quality is the Left Pillar and Pirsig’s Classic Quality is the Right Pillar.

Hochmah= Wisdom, insight gained through a monologue to obtain knowledge of exterior states, external empirical knowledge.  Also here there is no clear revelation nor any particularization or separation of this thought.  It is the beginning of thought which is pre-verbal.  This is the realm of Taoist Yang and in Kabbalist term this is ‘Abba’: Father.

Binah= Perception, insight gained through a dialogue to obtain understanding of interior states.  This is the place where thought becomes words.  This is the realm of Taoist Yin, in Kabbalist terms this is ‘Imma’: Mother.

Hesed= is the focus on the collective, to integrate as a unit and the partness of a holon.

Din= is the focus on the individual, to assert the self and the wholeness of a holon.

Tifereth=Platonic Beautiful and the place of Harmony.

Netzach=the Dynamic forces of a holon, Pirsig’s Dynamic Quality.

Hod=is the Static forces of a holon, Pirsig’s Static Quality.

Yesod=Platonic Truth forged out of the alchemy of creative union.

Malkuth=is manifestation, Platonic Good, it’s the conclusion, the solution, the Map, it is verbal speech and song in the context of its dwelling place, its geography, its time and its culture.

Hod and Netzach are Matter and Energy.  Energy, as Einstein noted through his masterful equation, is matter in motion.  Matter comes about when energy is slowed down.  Hod is the slowing of energy into its static manifestation of Matter.  Netzach is the speeding up of matter into its dynamic manifestation of Energy.  Hod and Netzach are the complementary forces of time, particles ,waves, Matter and Energy.

I had decided to treat these entries as if I could later take them and publish them.  Hence they had to be framed in a way to deal with the realities of copyrights and publishers.  Therefore I will directly site the Two Penguin translators works - Jonathan Star and D. C. Lau with the addition of an Internet offtering by Lok Song Ho which was done in 2002. 

Lastly I will indirectly reference other English translations utilizing the website creation of Mobile Worlds - who have brought together a comparative verse by verse listing at their website:

http://www.mobilewords.ca/tao/index.htm

This effort has been used by other web sites.  By referencing this comparison site I can have access to a wide range of translations without having to be trapped by copyright violations.

If one wants to read the whole translation by a specific translator via the Internet then this next website is an excellent resource:


This next website offers access to many translations as individual and complete texts to be examined -

http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html

Having stated all this I will go back and resubmit my first two commentary essays, and then move forward utilizing this framework that I have now mapped out.
******
A journey into the Tao Te Ching. One:1 – Rethinking the project.

I will begin a series of essays exploring the wisdom and insight contained in the words of Lao Tzu through a variety of translators who reveal from within the elegant simplicity of the text differing perspectives and insights in Lao Tzu’s verses.  Having decided to create a commentary that could be publishable I will need to limit my translations to translators who have published though related the same company.  Hence a revision in my sources, I will use the following translators.  The two Penguin works of Star and Lau, and the internet offering by Lok Song Ho will be my main references.  By having access to the internet I can refer to other translators for additional and alternative perspective.

Jonathan Star – Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2001 edition.
D. C. Lau – Penguin, 1963
Lok Song Ho, http://www.mobilewords.ca/tao/ho.pdf

Internet resources of English translations:
    http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html
and
    http://www.mobilewords.ca/tao/indexchp.htm

[One last aside, Star in his book presents each of the verses Chinese character by character and offers up all the possible English translations of that character and thus using this listing can construct one’s own translation.  I will offer my own translation using this compendium on the rarest of occasions.]

My method will be to present each section of the text from the two Penguin translators and then I will offer my own commentary upon those verses – offering what insight I can from the depths of wisdom that is the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and interpreting what I read into each of the differing translator’s words.  Ultimately the commentary is my own understanding and not that of the translators.  In the commentary I will refer to other translators whose versions are available in books or on through the Internet.

And so it begins…
 
One: 1

Star
A way that can be walked is not The Way.
A name that can be named is not The Name.

Lao
The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant way.
The name that can be named is not the constant name.

Ho
Ways that can be spelled out cannot be the eternal Way.
Names that can be named must change with time and place.

Jaron
The Tao that can be spoken of is surely not the Absolute Tao.
Names that can be spoken of are surely not the Absolute Name.

Commentary:
The first chapter of Lao Tzu’s book begins with him setting forth the wonder and mystery of the territory before us.  He begins with grand metaphysics – presented in elegant, succinct simplicity the totality of all human understanding confronted by ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’.

Star begins with the metaphor of the journey – we take our first steps into the mysterious territory before us – we go and we walk.  Now is it the path, the way, upon which we trod that is both real and not real or is it the act itself – our own way of going -  that is being called into question?  Or better yet, both.

Star is revealing to us that the way before us is real the territory itself that we are about to explore during our lifetime– it is what we can see, taste, touch, feel, and hear.  But this thing that presents itself to our senses we are told by Lao Tzu is all of that and yet it is also beyond what our senses can offer us – it is not The Way.  Perhaps Star is revealing that our ability to walk – what we can accomplish with our body as we venture into the territory is not the real Way – our bodies alone are not enough – we need to use a vehicle that transcends the limitations of only our physical bodies to journey forth into the real Way, the real Tao.

Raymond Blakney also uses the Tao as a way that can be journeyed metaphor.  Blakney presents the realization that there are many paths one can take to explore the territory of Life and Being but in its true essence the Tao itself will always remain ‘uncharted’ territory beckoning each and everyone of us to go out and explore and create our own map.

Thomas Cleary offers an interesting variant   With Cleary we have a way that is our map which can be a guide into the territory but that map – that way is not fixed, not set into only one configuration.  Each of us has our own way, our own map to guide us on our journey.  I believe Cleary is also saying that the way our own map itself is not fixed and static but is dynamic and can change with the passage of time and experience.

D C Lao, Ho and my own translations focus on speaking and telling – what we do after we have journey and experience the territory.  The insights we offer are similar.  What we speak, what we can tell – is only one finite collection of words out of an infinite possibility of permutations of things that we can consciously and unconsciously decide to recall about our journey.  There is even the possibility that we are not even yet, or were not at that time of the event capable of having enough wisdom and knowledge to even be able to recall aspects of that journey.  The point being that what we speak and what we can tell about the way is only a finite set of words, it is not the sum total of the Eternal and Absolute Tao.

Ho offers and interesting insight in that the Tao that can be explained – spelled out, cannot be the Eternal Tao.  Ho is summarizing the realization that no amount of human effort to explain something is the same as the thing itself.

Witter Bynner agrees with Ho, that the fullness of the Tao is the recognition that it is all of existence itself and that this is ‘beyond the power of words’ to truly encompass or fully elucidate.

Another layer to Lao and my own translation is that this verse is revealing something about not the Tao as a journey but about the Tao as Lao Tzu’s word for the Infinite Divine.  Here what is being said is that we humans can connect to the Infinite Divine – we have the possibility to be like a mystic or a prophet and communion directly with the Divine, but after that communion, we come back into our finite being and try to speak and tell about that eternal and Absolute Divine and whatever it is we say is only finite words it is not the Infinite thing in its true essence and being.  The eternal and Absolute Tao – the Infinite Divine is beyond all of our finite human abilities to speak and tell.

Now the second verse – here all the translators seem to agree.  The name, the label we humans can speak and devise for the real and truly eternal and Absolute Tao – the mystery of the Infinite is beyond any and all finite human words.  What ever name we give and offer is merely offering up a single grain of sand as if it represents and can compare to the totality of the infinite collection of sand.  The name we use is only a device we can create to point toward the Infinite.  The name is no substitute for the Infinite.

Ho points out that the names we use, the words we use in this process of explaining the Tao – or the experience of the territory, will change with reference to the culture of the explainer and thus the ‘spelling out’ will be different in the context of specific ‘time and place’

Witter Bynner again agrees with Ho that all our ‘terms’ that we humans can devise will fall short of truly capturing the infinite dynamic nature of the real thing itself , no human term is the true Absolute Tao.

Ultimately the insight of Lao Tzu was summarized well in the analysis and writings of Alfred Korzybski in his tome Science and Sanity whose insights can be stated succinctly as: The word is not the thing.  The map is not the territory.