The Great Unknown - Or Otherwise To Be Known As A Slight Seque Into Rumination

In the eighteenth century, after Mr. Isaac Newton had set down the model for classical physics; when planets, satellites such as the moon and asteroids could be predicted in their courses through the infinity of space, the universe seemed to carry on in a most predictable manner. Perhaps most interestingly, the universe did carry on in a very predictable manner, at least on the large scale scheme of things. But western human development, continuing on it's most peculiar unfoldment in which we understand what is outside of us more than ourselves, was just beginning to offer new topics such as 'why do I fear?' or 'why do I do the exact opposite of what I should?' And true, the problem had been at least identified in the western tradition earlier, in Paul who for example said in one of his letters something to the effect that 'I do what I don't want to do.' But only after centuries of studying the stars, then the sun, then the moon, then the natural cornucopia of the periodic, animal and vegetable kingdoms, did man look to himself and declare 'I know not who I am!' 'I am less predictable to myself than a comet's path that is thousands of miles away!' At this point, Auguste' Comte the social philosopher summed the situation up nicely when he proposed that 'man poses endless need, yet endless danger.' The keyword being 'endless.' As we look out onto a field plain, and then to the horizon, and then to the moon, the sun, the stars, the virtual infinity of space, we take it all in and know we are just as vast. Inside ourselves. There is an endless flow of thought, an endless range of emotion, an endless array of drives rooted in the animal that seem to issue forth from our selves. Whence comes all this activity? The eastern sages had a leg up on western man concerning the psychological and the spiritual. In the Taoist classic the Tao Te Ching, man's predicament is shown to be akin to a person standing in a field who spies another galloping at full thrust on a horse past him. The bystander shouts 'where are you going?' To which the rider exclaims 'I don't know!' The rider is us. We are driven hither and thither by we know not what. The hindu, with his Atman, also made a contribution to the spiritual condition of man, in that there is an element in us that sits atop of it all and says 'I am.' One can dispassionately look upon onesself and say 'I am thinking' or 'I am feeling' or so forth. This deepest ground of being, the Atman, is as ancient truly as anything we can know and something humanity shares in common. Here, the tripartite soul of man comes in handy, as found in Plato's Republic. Man has an animal nature, consisting of drives to survive existentially in the material world, a spirit that sits atop and is the faculty of reason, and a soul, the house of emotions and thoughts that acts as a bridge between the two. In the western tradition, if light is not shed upon the animal nature, if it is not tamed and ruled by first proper emotions, then thoughts, and then dispassionate reason, disaster can strike. And looking upon the twentieth century consisting of wars and rumours of wars, we can surely see these drives and emotions when in one man, are united with another, and then another, only make the irrational fears and uncertainties grow exponentially when found in crowds and masses. In western man, we tend to objectify the nastiness of ourselves in others or in the environment, and consequently act violently to both. If I had to choose, I would say it's the soul, which is represented in the esoteric tradition as water, where the emotions and thoughts are housed, that has caused us so much endless need and endless danger. Water, as we all know, can be deep, still, crystal clear, or on the other hand can be shallow, stagnant, polluted, troubled and foul. Water, essential to life, can destroy life in tidal waves, in undercurrents, in storms, in rivers bursting levees. Water, if not mastered, will just as easily destroy life as give life. In one manifestation, it is a unique and beautiful snowflake and in another, a common and threatening sheet of black ice.

So one can go out in search of the great unknown. Climb mountains. Kayak through untamed rivers. Explore hidden forests. But it is the inner that matches the outer that can be such a blessing and such a curse.