Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? O my friends, then you have said Yes too to all woe. All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored; if ever you wanted one thing twice, if ever you said, You please me, happiness! Abide moment! then you wanted all back. All anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored--oh then you loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore; and to woe too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants--eternity.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love you, O eternity. ~ Thus Spake Zarathustra Quoting Tomberg from Letter X, The Wheel : King Solomon had experience of the wheel —not as that of incarnations, as with Buddha— but rather as inexorable fate, rendering all human hope and endeavour in vain: > This is the wheel of existence under the sun of which Solomon, the wise and sorrowful king of Jerusalem, had a vision. And what practical advice does he give for posterity? That of supreme despair, as follows: > It is Solomons despair which made him into an Old Testament prophet and gave his work a place between the psalms and the books of the prophets. For Solomon portrays the emptiness —which he calls vanity—of the world of the serpent and thus sets in relief the dilemma: either suicide, or salvation on the part of God. for above the turning wheel of vanity there is GOD. Solomons despair certainly belongs to the Holy Scripture. He portrays the world without Christ—which, moreover, the Buddha did also. Solomons sadness is the sighing of creation for deliverance, having become conscious in him. Thus Buddha rightly diagnosed the world of the serpent before Christ: Solomon wept over it; but Nietzsche —how monstrous! —sang of it. Yes, Nietzsche saw and understood the wheel, the closed circle with no outlet, of the world of the serpent, and he said Yes to it. He had the vision of eternal repetition, the eternal return (ewige Wiederkunft^ — and he identified it with eternity, although it is the very opposite of eternity: > (Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra)* [NOTE: This reminds me of Le Monde -- card 21, letter 22 ~ Wayne] — so he sings of the wheel that Buddha diagnosed as the great misfortune and that Solomon estimated as the vanity of vanities. Poetical lyricism? It is more than this! Nietzsche certainly gave a poetic form to what he took to be his illumination. But this was only a summary of the last consequences drawn from modern science—not as method, but rather as mode of world-outlook. In fact, according to the positivistic science of the end of the nineteenth century, the world is the sum-total of innumerable combinations of simple particles, atoms. The combinations change endlessly, but at some time the number of possible combinations of atoms must necessarily reach its limit and the number of new combinations must be exhausted. Then the previous combinations must repeat themselves. Therefore there will be sometime in the future a day which will be the exact repetition of today. This is the scientific basis of the eternal return. ~ Letter 10, page 242 [NOTE: This is where I think Tomberg isnt quite fair to Nietzsche. Nietzsche does seem to describe it that way, but his insight is much deeper, IMO. In any event, Tombergs discussion is interesting and thought provoking... ~ Wayne] Quoting Tomberg: The good news of religion is that the world is not a closed circle, that it is not an eternal prison, that it has an exit and an entrance. There is an entrance, which is why Christmas is a joyous festival. There is an exit, which is why Ascension is a festival. And that the world can be transformed, such as it is, into such as it was before the Fall —this is the good news of the festival of festivals, the festival of the Resurrection or Easter. The world as a closed circle, the world of the eternal return, the world where there is nothing new under the sun—what is this in reality? It is nothing other than cosmic hell. For the idea of hell can be understood as eternal existence in a closed circle. The closed circle of egoism would then be subjective and individual hell; the closed circle of a world of constant energy would then be objective and cosmic hell. Now we have the cosmic meaning of the terms salvation and perdition. Perdition is to be caught up in the eternal circulation of the world of the closed circle, the world without a sabbath; salvation is life in the world of the open circle, or spiral, where there is both exit and entrance. Perdition is existence in the closed circle of the eternal return; salvation is life under the open sky, where each day is new and unique —a miracle in the infinite chain of miracles. . For God is not unknowable, but rather, knowable — through inexhaustible and infinite knowledge. The infinite revelationability and knowability of God: this is the essence of the eternal sabbath, the seventh day of creation. The seventh day of creation is that of eternal life and the source of miracles. For it is laden with possibilities of new things, and from it energies can be added to the so-called constant quantity of the phenomenal world, just as energies of this world can disappear into it. The two other terms in the cosmic drama of evolution are the Fall and redemption. It is now easier to understand them after having drawn out to a certain extent the cosmic meaning of the terms salvation and perdition. For the Fall is a cosmic event, a whirlwind set in motion by the closed circle of the serpent biting his tail and sweeping down part of the created world (cf. Revelation xii, 4). And redemption, to say it directly, is the cosmic act of the Reintegration of the fallen world, first in creating an opening in its closed circle (religion, initiation, prophecy), then in instituting a path of exit (Buddhas) and entrance (Avatars) through this door, and lastly in transforming the fallen world from within by the radiation of the incarnated Word (Jesus Christ). ~ Meditations on the Tarot, Letter X (p. 243) fourhares/pdfs/mott/Letter-10.pdf
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 01:56:35 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015