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Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword
I really have nothing to say to this because this whole paragraph is claims. I really don't see how you start off accepting monism. My question would be how one can believe in such a thing.
I don't think everything can be called existence. Existence is a property and not an actual thing. We do refer to "the universe" as existence, but "existence" takes on the meaning of "everything that is."
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I didn't start off believing monism, and I don't think anybody does. I could say it was "revealed" to me, I could say I experienced it, but these are all dualistic descriptions revolving around subject/object: I/transcendence. Even the description "I AM" falls short.
The notion that existence is a property, or predicate, has been widely disputed and is the subject of much philosophical debate. My view of the Universe is that complexity emerges from simplicity, and that this is why complex phenomena can be understood through Law, which restores their unity.
One way I could try to explain this is by setting up a duality between MIND and mind, where MIND could be interpreted as the Mind of God. MIND unfolds from simplicity to complexity, it is One in itself, it becomes witness to itself, becoming subject and object, it explodes into the limitless possibilities inherent in this division, becoming many subjects and many objects.
Mind, on the other hand, my mind or your mind, comes at the end of this process, after MIND has divided itself into many minds. A mind reverses this process, it takes the many minds (subjects) and unifies them through common beliefs, it takes the many objects and unifies them through Law. And so, mind folds back into MIND and the unity is restored.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword
How do contradiction and identity give rise to thought? What are you defining as thought? Thought only exists if there is an object to think about. If there is no object to think about, then there can be no thought. I take it that since "identity" does not exist, then you reject the idea that things exist. Existence is only possible as long as identity is possible. You cannot exist without existing as something.
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How will thought define itself? Since thought understands Being through abstract concepts, ultimately thought will call Being itself a thought-form, since this is what it strives to reduce Being to (namely, itself). This is why I have given another name for Being, namely MIND. But MIND is simply Being as approached through thought. If I claim there is something besides thought, I can't define it through thought. But for simplicity's sake I could just go ahead and call it Body.
Along this line of reasoning, Body is simply that which resists mind. Mind is free to think of whatever it wants, whether it be consistent or self-contradictory. However, Body imposes limits and restraints on mind.
So Being divides itself into subject and object, mind and body. The mind responds to the needs of the body, and the body is subject to interpretation and definition by the mind.
When I claim that there is a unity that is "above" or "beyond," or "under" and "within," this duality of mind/body, when I attempt to define it rationally, with my mind, I betray it by choosing one side of the duality over the other (namely, mind over body). Hence, I call it MIND, and can represent it as a Force that has no restraints--it thinks everything it can think into existence, and this is its existence, it exists through its Thoughts which participate in its existence.
If I take the opposite route, and choose body over mind, I will have a much harder time of defining it. I would represent it as that which cannot be represented, not a Force, but a Limit. Not that which has no constraints, but that which is constraint itself, with nothing to constrain. And, if you think about it, this is Being, which cannot be defined except in terms of itself, which adds no information to its object except that it is, a pure constraint. Being, taken by itself, without any object to apply it to, is Body in its purest form, when we realize that any abstraction we use to label Body is still part of mind, and hence misses the mark.
Because the Unity manifests as Duality, choosing one side of the Duality over the other necessarily misses the Unity, but we can still find the Unity when we realize that these extremes coincide--that absolute constraint is absolute freedom, and that this is paradox.
Identity and contradiction do not give rise to thought, MIND or Being gives rise to thought. Thought is an expression of the self-division of MIND or Being, because it has a subject (mind) which is identical to itself, and contradictory to its object. And yet, despite the inherent difference between the subject and object, the subject can understand the object, which implies their underlying unity.
However, the subject cannot understand this unity itself, because it transcends the duality implicit in understanding. The unity resides on a higher level of experience, from which mind and body emanate. Mind and body have to be reconciled as a unity for this level to be reached, mind cannot get there on its own.