What this post attempts to introduce?
This post attempts to propose that nature, or in other words 'existence', if we take it as some kind of an organization or a phenomenon, we can not ever judge that it is without having a specific, distinct and clear line of predilection, or an emotional direction. It tries to propose that such predilection could be LOVE, if it is understood in a new, revolutionary meaning. The very purpose of this paper is to introduce LOVE in such a new, revolutionary meaning, as the all encompassing emotion that prevails in existence, around us!
Our primordial ancestors, after having seen themselves as helpless victims of nature's wrath in the form of floods, storms,wild-fires, thunder,earthquakes, diseases and death, but at the same time recipients of many bounties too, such as unbound harvests, good-hunts, familial, marital and sexual pleasures, plain beauty in nature etc, had attributed positive as well negative predispositions to nature. They created images of good-Gods as well as destructive Gods, and worshiped both, to please them, with the intention of keeping both sides with them, for the sake of ensuring safe and good life!
In the Old-testament of Christians too, the image of God was that of an angry and punishing God, though in the post-Christ New-testament, that imagery had changed to that of an ever-loving and ever-caring God. In the Hindu as well as Greek mythology, it was just a repeat of the initial, primordial responses mentioned above. There was a God for every major activity in the life of man, whether it was war or Love.
One ultimate feature of our intellectual system or organization comes out from the above descriptions, ie. irrespective of the shape and expression of our religious deities, how man identified them was by their basic 'predilection'. Some Gods with that of rage and revenge, while some other with art and education, and yet some other with love and romance.
In Hindu religious mythology, Goddess Kali was always depicted with her fierce sense of revenge and rage. Similar is Lord Shiva at times.
In Greek Mythology, Hera similarly is a revengeful and angry Goddess.
In Christian and in Jew mythology, the old-testament God is depicted as angry and vengeful.
So, understanding Gods by their basic nature, or predilection was the norm for devotees. They drew the pictures and statues of such Gods and deities with suitable expressions and bodily features to match their above described emotional disposition. While Goddess Kali is always a fierce entity with blood on her mouth, Mother Mary of Christians always carries a very loving and caring expression.
Now the ultimate task here, as we have outlived the time of myths, and as we are faced with an intellectual and spiritual responsibility to finally understand the one and only source of life and existence, is to conclude on the right,ultimate predilection of Nature or Existence. We know that existence is one specific 'whole' as per our all possible and conceivable intelligence and Reason go. Shouldn't she might be possessing a singular 'predilection', or disposition towards whatever that exists, most especially towards her so-called live and intelligent, or enlightened beings? It can not be a mere fantasy of our imagination, but a very accurate, sane, rational and irrefutable conclusion.
We realize, that our ultimate understanding of people around us, our closest friends, between husbands and wives, our bosses, our heads of States etc is by their 'basic predilection or character disposition', more than by their physical, bodily features.. They are entities known first and foremost by their predilections, because it is what defines them as entities. It is always beyond what they dress, what they talk and what facial expressions they exhibit. Predilection or disposition of persons is their ultimate identity, the ultimate truth about them.There is no scope for 'two' opinions about this inference.
The relevance of the predilection or predisposition of the ultimate, one and only source of life and existence!
We have numerous religions in the world, hence numerous predilections attributed to God. We know, that they are all outcome of our imagination.
At some stage of mankind's intellectual development, isn't it mandatory that she should come out free from her mind-created myths and glimpse the ultimate truth? The most important among such ultimate truths will be the 'ultimate predilection' or the 'disposition' of the source of the whole, the 'existence'. Once we have at least a vague glimpse of what such predilection or disposition is, we might achieve the most prized truth about life and existence. It is equal to realization of God by the humans.
Can we ever achieve this so called un-achievable feat? Do we have any source or organ to know or 'sense' such predilection of true God or the ultimate source of life and existence? Here there is a difference between knowing and 'sensing'. While knowing is an intellectual exercise, that involves an exercise of the mind, 'sensing is merely utilizing an inherent faculty of man. Eyes and ears are such inherent faculties of humans, while scientific feats are the result of our 'knowledge gaining exercise'. Humans had worked upon their cluster of sense observations and arrived at many inferences about the actual working of the physical world. Here, we have arrived at the necessary 'predilection' of existence by using our so called 'knowing' route, but to touch such predilections, we know, we would have to depend upon the 'sensing' route. Such predilection will most probably be an emotion, which is beyond the physical exercise of 'knowing' by imaginative minds following the usual route of hypotheses,experiments etc. We know, we usually sense the emotions involved in our day to day relations, love, rage, animosity, fear, hatred, or empathy. Science uses the brain or neurons route now to 'know' emotions, by observing the physical 'changes' the emotions arise in the brain, or the proteins the physical body excrete to create such emotion. It is not yet very clear today, during the spurt of emotions, whether the proteins excrete first or the emotions cause the proteins to excrete.
Above is not an ordinary item of an ordinary discussion. It has the value of our lives. Love to share with all the most intelligent minds of our age, a most seriously attempted work on the theme of truth and reality, and whether the human mind has any means of knowing the ultimate truth. This is at link: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/2013/12/actual-and-mind-created-realities.html
Why is it most sensible to infer, that the ultimate essence of Existence will be her predilection?
We know, our Science's efforts are to 'know' the ultimate equation of the universe, or a theory that explains her every physical phenomenon and features. It has a silent assumption, that ultimately whatever that exists will aspects of a physical whole. It is perhaps an assumption similar to that a blind man who is unaware, that there exists a sense organ called eye, and a category of experience called 'sight'. Knowing the 'predilection' of 'existence' was never a known or imaginable 'category' of any of our 'known' sense organ, or is much different from sight, sound, smell, taste or touch. Like the ignorance of the blind man described above, it is beyond the imagination of him, that there can be a sense organ to SEE things until he is compelled to believe the account of someone around him, whom he truly has trust.
But when one day this blind man is provided with an eye organ, say by the help of Science, he will be compelled to alter his old beliefs. He now experiences a new world. Something unimaginable to him before.
Now the notion of the entire world is similar to the realities of the blind man in our story. No one today is aware that, we might be carrying a 'sense-organ' that is equipped with the faculty of 'experiencing' such predilections of existence. The blind man who has been surgically given a pair of 'eyes' might find it extremely difficult to come to terms with the world that he could SEE, beyond hearing, smelling and touching.
This encounter with the new sense-organ might not come so naturally. Life of man is filled with uncertainties of deadly diseases, death, accidents, natural calamities, wars and interpersonal troubles. These inevitable catastrophes in personal life compel humans to seriously introspect what life is. Man has inherent features of his faculty of Reason to go on analyzing his life if he is sincere and ardent in the pursuit, and carry him to the question of his relationship with the ultimate stuff he is related to, ie. his existence.Here is a link that delves deep into such faculty: http://thesparkleofhumanreason.blogspot.in/2011/01/part-b.html
In most of the cases of catastrophes above described, he comes out unharmed. Often he tends to think, such recovery was due to his strong will, and smart steps he has taken to survive.
But if he is clear in his analysis and introspection, he will realize, that such recoveries had at least some external variables too, besides his own efforts and smartness. It will not take much time for him to realize, that even Existence too was eager and passionate about his/her recovery from his/her personal troubles.
Once he/she is convinced of this unknown external variable, his life will start taking a new turn; he/she starts realizing that, he/she has a real partner in his/her life besides his/her own efforts and will, ie, existence herself.
Here is the moment for him/her to further seek to know, what was the role of Existence in his/her life? Wasn't he/she independent and free from every external force? Wasn't he/she in a war of survival with Nature as per the theory of Darwin? What is the ultimate equation of his/her 'sense' of self? If Existence also had a keen desire to deliver him/her from his/her troubles, what kind of an attitude Existence would have had towards him/her?
Was he/she unique and special before existence, or she(existence) was only an 'impersonal-object', an 'object' among millions of other similar objects around him/her? Isn't Existence an impersonal, lifeless, mindless, 'matter' whole?
If she was a mindless, 'matter-whole', how could she take interest in his/her life and often ensured a recovery from his/her troubles and agonies?
It is at this point, that he/she starts making a hypothesis, that Existence must be a 'live' 'whole', naturally possessing certain 'predilection' or 'disposition' towards whatever that exists.
Here he/she gets convinced, that such disposition may not be an impersonal, deaf and dumb attempt or competition among living creatures for 'success' and 'survival'. The emptiness of what he/she had done to ensure his/her 'recovery' from troubles becomes clear before his/her rational sense.
It may not be a moment to 'turn' him into a religious believer, but a true inborn act of Existence, giving him/her a clear sense of what she is. He/she suddenly 'senses' his undeniable, irreducible relationship with the Existence. The relationship of Existence with him/her, he/she realizes, that not anything 'neutral' or negative, but something very positive, caring and life-sustaining.
When he/she struggles to conceive such an emotion or attitude, the possibility of understanding LOVE very differently from its usual romantic and moral sense gets clear before him/her.
Yes, LOVE can be the name of that emotion, or the disposition/predilection, that Nature or Existence is keeping towards whatever that exists.
Love, first of all here for Existence, is a wholesome 'sense' of reverence about herself; She is something 'sacred' and noble in her own eyes, that always seeks to see such sacredness in her surrounding. It was perhaps the emotion that had resulted in allowing everything to exist. It was perhaps NOT the forces of physical, thermodynamic necessity that had resulted in the existence of amoebas to countless species of animals, countless plants and trees and the most evolved entity, the human-being, but an yet to fully understood existential emotion, LOVE.
At his/her present stage of intellectual development, every human being may not be able to fully realize what this base existential emotion of LOVE is. Can we simply state that, it is an expression of the reverence, or the 'valuing' of everything around one? Basically, it was a base reverence of existence towards herself. She might have desired to have many similar entities in existence, who could ultimately share this base emotion. But creating entities was a big problem. Existence never wanted to create android like entities with artificial intelligence. She might have desired a natural evolving of entities in due course, irrespective of this process taking millions of years in terms of such live entities. This might have been the truth; existence allowed us to evolve naturally., understanding her base emotions in due course, in the maturity of time.
Valuing the other entity as own may be defined as the basis of love. It is a very complex emotion for us to understand now, as we are still in our animal stage of development. But it seems the only viable logical explanation of existence and its why question. A day is certain in our future intellectual development that we fully understand this existential emotion of love.
Evolving minds may please be in touch so that we work together to develop this base idea and make life on earth for intelligent minds to turn better and meaningful.
Authored by: Abraham L.Palakudy.
He is a dedicated,ardent seeker of the truth about life and existence.
He tweets by the name Voice of philosophy@jopan1.
His brief profile and other blogs, at link: https://www.blogger.com/profile/14249415589712707293
