objection ism

8/8/2019 Objection Ism

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What is Objectionism?

Thou shalt know; self-chosen are the woes that fall onmen - how wretched, for they see not good so near,nor hearken to its voice - few only know the pathwayof deliverance from ill - Pythagoras

All over the world people face the same sexual,domestic, social, and psychological problems. A lot ofpeople admit that they suffer anxiety because of thecomplexity and apparent disorder of the world aroundthem. They admit that they see the world as a confusingand often chaotic place without meaning. Because of

deep set uncertainty, a lot of people simply give upsearching for a meaning and immerse themselves intheir daily socially-prescribed and socially-endorsedroles. They give up caring about their ultimate purposeor end.

In order to find meaning in life, and lessen the irritatinganxiety one experiences, it is necessary to questionthings in a philosophical manner. However, most peopleare not inclined to do this. A little exposure tophilosophical works and, more often than not, people areput off. Nevertheless, it is the ability to look at life

philosophically that brings a working understanding ofwhat is going on in the world. Why are things the waythey are? Why are they this way as opposed to that?What does it all mean? What makes people tick? Who amI? What am I doing here? Where am I going? Does Godexist? Everyday chit chat and newspaper reading doesnot provide us with sufficient insight into questions ofthis sort. Moreover, having opinions about a subject isnot the same thing as having true understanding.

Those who do not entirely avoid the larger questions orthe search for meaning often look to religion for their

answers. Religion, however, appeals more to beliefs thanto knowledge. And one must conform to a lot ofimpersonal pre-established codes and ideas when theytake the religious road. In other words, reason andcritical judgment are often suspended rather thansharpened. Once a dogma is accepted on faith, anxiety islessened but, more often than not, the personal arduoussearch for meaning is abandoned. As the French


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philosopher Michel de Montaigne once expressed it:Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by thedozen.

without cultural sanction, most or all of our religiousbeliefs and rituals would fall into the domain of mental

disturbance J. F. Schumacher (Corruption of Reality)

Crucially, religion is primarily a social phenomenon. Oneis part of a religion and a religious group. One dresses asthe group members tends to dress, speaks as it iscustomary for the group members to speak, and thinksalong the same lines as the groups most ardentmembers. In other words, one allows themselves to beindoctrinated by the dogma and mores of the religiousgroup and often seeks to indoctrinate others. This is howand why the worlds many religious communities exist.As Anthony Wallace wrote in Religion: An AnthropologicalView:

Religious behavior is always socialSome religiousbehaviors may be performed by individuals insolitude, but no religion is purely an individual matter;there is always a congregation which meets on someoccasions for the joint performance of ritual acts

Being part of a religion is attractive because of theecstatic experiences sometimes experienced by ardentbelievers. Experiences of a transcendent kind are oftenconsidered the highest and greatest experiences one canhave. A believer can feel himself to be God-intoxicated orelevated in spirit. Various Biblical characters, given thatthey existed, allegedly walked in the presence of God orwhere imbued by his love, and so on. Generally,experiences of this kind are brought on by externalforces or circumstances, and are rarely auto-generated.(Consider the conversion of Saint Paul on the road toDamascus, or the vision Constantine experienced outsideRome.) In many cases, an individual experiences aeuphoric state while in the presence of a group of co-believers. This is common for Evangelists, SouthernBaptists, Revivalists, and members of Christian Sciencecongregations. It is also common in the Eastern world.

Some people wonder why they should look to philosophyfor meaning when apparently philosophy has nomeaning. It appears convoluted and abstract, and doesnot seem to be worth the effort. Well, that is wherepeople are quite wrong. Philosophy is vitally importantand does open the way to knowledge. It focuses the


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mind and creates a foundation from which to logicallyexamine reality. It also allows one to examine their ownthinking, but maybe it is this feature that puts people off.

Another group of people are contemptuous of philosophybecause they see it as the fruitless pastime of an elite

leisured class. Life moves far too fast for of lazyruminations. I have to rush to meet my goals andachieve success, so there is no time for deep thought onabstract issues that have nothing to do with my desireand fun. Its a common response.

Of course, a few people do wish to find out what is goingon in the world and what reality is all about. They doquestion and seek for answers. They do become critical,and they do judge what they see. They are inclined tolook within and observe how their own minds work. As aresult, they often become better human beings. And that

is the point of the exercise. However, some may decideto relate what they have discovered to other people.

They imagine that by sharing what they know they willhelp the world. This is common even among topphilosophers and has been a habit from timeimmemorial. Those familiar with the Athenian history, forexample, know that Socrates convened symposiums totalk over deep matters with his associates. Philosopherssuch as Plato, Descartes, Hume, Berkeley, andKierkegaard composed some of their works as dialoguesbetween two people, or as letters to such and such afriend. In this way they were able to communicate to thepublic at large in a light, conversational manner. Manyphilosophers, such as Montaigne and Nietzsche wrote ina style that evoked an intimate rapport with theirreaders. Others wrote down their thoughts in a poeticmanner. This was the case in ancient times as one cansee from reading Taoist sages. Their work is accessibleand yet profound, unlike that of some philosopherswhose work is notoriously intricate or convoluted. This isshame, because it does indeed put people off philosophy.It is a pity because the mysteries of life should beunderstandable to people from any class or creed. Theyshould be straightforward even to souls who are not ableto read or write. All that should be necessary for thevoyage of discovery to begin is the will to know. The restwill come in time along the way.


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My philosophy - Objectionism - is very simple tounderstand. Primarily Taoist in the purest sense, it is thephilosophy of the Uncarved Block and UnhewnDolmen. Elements of my philosophy reiterate andreinforce some ideas advanced by previous sages, but italso serves to refute many ideas put forth over the

centuries which continue to perplex us.

Of course, rational people know that philosophy is veryimportant. They also know that philosophers have notcompletely resolved a lot of important quandaries. This isnot to say that pertinent questions have not beenaddressed, or that answers of various sorts have notbeen in abundance. Nevertheless, although a man canput forth an answer to a particular question, it does notmean that his answer is sustainable, now or over time, orthat it is right. Students of philosophy know it is acommon practice to philosophically refute unsustainable

notions without necessarily adding anything to replacewhatever is rejected or clarify the original question thatwas not satisfactorily explained. Refutation is one thing,solving is another. The modern-day philosopher WillardQuine openly stated that the ability to refute weak pointsof a philosophers work does not in any way mean thatthe refuter is himself a philosopher. On the importance ofphilosophy, Hegel wrote:

Every individual is a blind link in the chain of absolutenecessity, along which the world develops. Everyindividual can raise himself to domination over a great

length of this chain only if he realizes the goal of thisgreat necessity and, by virtue of this knowledge, learnsto speak the magic words which evoke its shape. Theknowledge of how to simultaneously absorb andelevate oneself beyond the total energy of sufferingand antithesis that has dominated the world and allforms of its development for thousands of years - thisknowledge can be gathered from philosophy alone

In fact, Hegel believed that it is only when men arrive ata truly philosophical or rational level of existence thatcomplete knowledge of God is available to them.

Does my philosophy provide answers? Yes it does, in astraightforward and yet profound manner. Do I hold adegree from a university? No I do not. However, becausean expert in philosophy has letters after his name, orbecause he works in a prestigious college, is acclaimedas the bees knees throughout the world, or is a legend


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in his own mind, does not mean he has a clue as to whatis going on in the world or that his ideas amount toanything special. When we study the history ofphilosophy, we find plenty of evidence for what I amsaying. Plenty of evidence.

Nevertheless, in general, the questions of philosophy arevitally important. Seeking answers to them is equallyimportant. It is strange however that no one man hasbeen able to arrive at total insight into the problems ofexistence. No man from the time of Plato that is. Butthere are men who have come very close to the answer.At least that is the case in my opinion.

Not all philosophers come from the same tradition. Theydo not have the same interests, and dont examine thesame questions. Even those who do deal with similarmaterial may have radically different approaches and

perspectives. Some of their results are easy tocomprehend and some are extremely difficult to fathom.One would think that the answers to lifes meaning aresimple and understandable to all, regardless ofbackground and intelligence. Well, maybe that is toomuch to ask. In any case, as I said, from the days of thegreat Athenian sages, no one man has completelycracked the mysteries of life. If any man had done so,then obviously there would be no more questions orproblems. Thinking philosophically as we know it wouldhave ended. This is hard to envision even though thereare philosophers - known as Idealists - who havespeculated that a day will come when this kind offinalization will occur.

Individual philosophers are inclined to dismiss what I amsaying. This is because many vexatious problems ofphilosophy have been sufficiently worked out, and nolonger bother us. However, the larger problemsconcerning existence and being, continue to plaguethinkers, particularly in recent times. Questions raised byexperts within fields of genetics and Quantum science,and so on, have shaken the foundations of what hashitherto been believed. Indeed, as one epoch replacesanother, we are forced to re-examine age old questionsabout the universe and our place in it. One might wonderwhy this is.

Take good ol Descartes, for example. He lived in theseventeenth century and as far as he was concerned hecracked the problem of existence. He came up with hisanswer that he expressed in his famous statement


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Cogito Ergo Sum, I think, therefore I am. Yep,Descartes was convinced that he had come upon the onetrue solution. And he was not the only philosopher toimagine that his solution to the conundrum of existencewas good to go. Aristotle, Aquinas, Augustine, Hegel,Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, and a lot of other sages, had the

same opinion about their theories. They made adiscovery, wrote it down, published it for the worldsedification, and had it commented on by generations ofscholars and laymen after they left this mortal coil.

One could call this level of conviction arrogance. Onecould say its natural. What we can say is that itcontrasts drastically with the opinion of Socrates whowholeheartedly made it clear that the more he thoughthe knew, the more his ignorance became apparent. Thisstance was common among Taoists who staunchlyproclaimed that it was impossible to philosophically

speak truly or falsely about anything. In general,despite a few minor considerations, this is also my view.Since reality as we think we know it constantly changes,every second and every minute, it is rather ridiculous tosay that we know anything about anything. In the end itis important to realize that just because we think wehave discovered the truth, does not mean we have. Itsnot a pleasant thought, I know, but it must beentertained, because it is fundamental. As one sage putit if we think we know the answer, we wont ask thequestion.

The only thing certain is nothing is certain Michel deMontaigne

For those who are new to philosophy, and for those whodo not think philosophically, I have provided somequestions of a philosophical type to help the reader getthe picture. The questions listed are only some of thoseasked. There are simpler questions and even morecomplex questions. To me, these are among the mostinteresting. In my opinion, they have not beensatisfactorily solved, at least not by a single sage. Youcan judge for yourself whether Im right on this point.

I also provide many links to sites of interest, for thosewho wish to delve more deeply into the subject ofphilosophy, or to understand the background to myideas. Above all, take nothing on faith. Do the homework,think the thoughts, and find out what is what foryourself.

That too is fundamental. In one sense, it is the greatest


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answer to every problem you will come to know. After all,every problem that exists was created by the humanmind. Therefore, it follows that the solutions also exist inthe mind. Your own mind, that is; which brings me to theheart of what Objectionism is.

Simply stated, Objectionism is a philosophy of objection.But to what I hear you ask.

Primarily, I object to philosophical dialogue. I do notbelieve that the questions of philosophy should be amatter of public discussion and debate. I guess, at first,this does not sound like a philosophy. Be that as it may. Ihave a deeply held belief that the reason why answers tothe over-arching questions have not been conclusivelydiscovered is due to a fundamental misconception aboutthe questioning and discovery process. What happens ifthe very process of publicly discussing questions of

philosophy and subsequently publicly disseminating theanswers one has discovered, turns out to be the veryreason why conclusive solutions are not reached byanyone? That is the question I pose to the reader. It is aquestion that deserves deep contemplation, and Ipersonally believe that once it is reviewed, it will prompta historically critical re-evaluation of the nature andoperation of the human mind. It will also prompt a re-evaluation of man in a sociological context, and will, Ibelieve, compel us to re-evaluate and understand moreabout man as an individual. At this point in time, mostpeople think of themselves as individuals withindependent minds. But if the thoughts they think arenot of and from themselves, is this conception reallyvalid? A person may confuse physical or worldlyindependence with mental independence. Even areputedly great thinker is capable of making that error.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant spent a lifetimeaddressing a centrally important philosophical quandary.He wanted to prove whether a baby is born with a blankmind, or whether it comes into the world with inbuiltunderstanding of things. In his seventies he wrote of hissurety in this regard, that is, he had come to believe thatthe mind of man has innate categories ofunderstanding that are not learned per se. They do notcome about due to our experiences afterbirth. Perhaps itdid not occur to Kant to see thoughts themselves asinnate ideas. No, he was looking for something moreelusive. Of course, it would take a lot of time to explainhis philosophy and the way he came to his fascinating ifconvoluted conclusions. That is not what I wish to do


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here. It seems plain to me that thoughts, or shall we saythe capacity to think, is a kind of innate idea. But even ina Kantian sense, an idea must be about something. Imean, it seems impossible to think about nothing, or tohave ideas about nothing. One can have an idea aboutthe world and its objects, or about their own minds. But

this understanding must come after birth and withexperience. So Kant seems to have been asking how themind knows what it knows. And like many otherphilosophers of his time, he questioned whether theworld that sensually appears to be there is real. Heseemed loath to accept that in order to know anythingone must exist and experience the world. One cant justknow their own mind independently of existence. Thatmakes no sense at all. Nor is it sensible to doubt that theworld exists. That amounts to the same thing asdoubting that oneself exists.

Clearly, a man cannot formulate philosophical questionswithout living in the world and experiencing the things ofthe world. Kant was no exception to this rule. Theexperience of an external world occurs to a mind alreadyembedded and entangled in the world. However, forsome reason, the mind imagines there is an externalworld of experience distinct from an inner world of mind.Many philosophers consider this dualism or idea ofdivision to be an illusion. They realize that it is the causeof innumerable irresolvable problems. One man whostrongly believed this was the English poet William Blake.He did not think of the world and the mind, or the bodyand the soul, as separate entities. In his magnificentwork entitled The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he wrote:

The notion that man has a body distinct from his soulis to be expunged

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes ofthe following errorsthat man has two real existing

principlesa Body and a Soul

Kant, and philosophers of his persuasion, would probablynot have invited Blake to many of their parties.

One can wonder, like Immanuel Kant, John Locke, andGeorge Berkeley, if the objects of the world are reallythere, or just phantoms of consciousness. One can alsowonder, like Rene Descartes, whether the mind gives usreliable information about the world and its objects. Sure,there are a lot of metaphysical, ontological,epistemological, and ethical questions to be asked. And


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boy, have they been asked. But the impulse and act ofpublicly discussing questions such as these is, I contend,the very reason why no acceptable answers have beenforthcoming. If you think about what I am saying it willstart to make sense. Great sense, I hope.

Of course, I am not criticizing open questioning ingeneral, about mercurial worldly issues. I speakspecifically of philosophical inquiry. In every case,philosophies have been publicly expounded by sageswho have written thick volumes, spoken from podiumsand sat at round tables all over the world. Philosophershave gone to great lengths not only to formulate theirideas, but to broadcast them to as wide an audience aspossible. And this impulse is, in my estimation, thereason why questions remain either partially solved orunanswered. It is the reason why schools of philosophyhave foundered and why sane men have gone insane.

The intelligent reader will now have surmised that myphilosophy is subjectivist. This means that it is notobjective. And that is quite right. I do not believe thattruth is objective. People imagine it is, and the reasonswhy they do so are very interesting and important. It hasto do with consensus reality and collectivism.

People have erroneous thoughts about truth because ofwho they have become, not because of who they are.

They allow other people to do their thinking for them,and become who they are because of training, notnatural development. With this in mind, I contend that acollectivists ideas about reality are flawed preciselybecause he is a collectivist with a pseudo-self and,therefore, a pseudo-reality.

More specifically, if a mans intention is to discussphilosophy openly, to disseminate his formulized ideasforcefully and widely, and to have those ideas become astandard, then he is, in my opinion, not in possession ofthe truth. The truth is never in the hands of the socially-oriented man. Simply stated, truth is not transferablefrom one man to another. If something is transferred orcommunicated - a set of ideas, a dogma, an ideology -then it is not true and will eventually fall after it has bredenough disaster. Most people will have no problemagreeing with me if I were to indict Fascism orCommunism. Then my words would be acceptable andmy meaning supported. In any case, I hold that what Isay goes for every codified belief system or ideology thatis held by more than one person.


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It is simply a philosophical certainty that all ideas beginin the mind of an individual. If you are solving a problem,you are doing so with your mind. The process goes onwithin you. The conclusions you arrive at are mostassuredly yours. That much cannot be refuted. Next,

your ideas become someone elses ideas. And that is theproblem. In fact, its a very great problem, the nucleus ofmany other satellite problems. The remedy is to keepyour ideas close to their source. Keep them to yourself.

They are the most precious private belongings. If youbestow or offer them to the world, it follows that they areno longer yours. You have just sold them on the openmarket. They are now public property, and you have justbecome a collectivist. You have also endorsedcollectivism. The point I am making was beautifullysummarized by the Indian teacher J. Krishnamurti whoopenly declared that truth is a pathless landthat cannot

be approached by any system, sect, creed, or cult.

Before the word philosopher was attributed, men ofdeep thought and insight were known as sages. The termphilosopher was apparently first employed byPythagoras who strongly believed in the privacy of onesconscious processes. He was certainly a man whobelieved that in order to be a philosopher, a man mustthink for himself. That means that he must stand aloneand own his ideas. He can guide others toward theirown apprehension of truth, but he cannot and should notimpart his own hard won truth. Nor can he learn truthfrom another. He is laboring under egregious delusion toimagine he can do so. Socrates himself belabored thispoint and said I cannot teach anybody anything, I canonly make them think.

The true sage thinks for himself. He finds the truth withinhimself. And, as I stipulate, his truth is lost the moment itis communicated.

I am not the first person to advocate this idea. Nietzsche,Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty,Feuerbach, and others, understood the same thing.However, apart of Nietzsche, each of these men codifieda particular philosophical system which was laterpackaged and disseminated to the world at large. Thiswas achieved by way of books, debates, commentary,and so on. Certain sages may go for a long time beforecommunicating their ideas abroad. This was the casewith the seventeenth century Christian philosopher JacobBoehme, who, after experiencing his own revelations,


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kept silent for nearly two decades. He did finally begin towrite about his insights, and many are glad he did so. Hisworks proved to be highly influential during and after histime.

However, in my opinion, there are many dangers that

arise when personal insights into the meaning of life arecommunicated to the world at large. I know that this is arather Stoical stance, but as long as the questioningprocess is reserved, and the answers one uncovers notmade public, all is well. To spread ones ideas weakensthose ideas and, in my opinion, constitutes a violation ofthe mental sovereignty of other people. A mans mind ishis own and must not be contaminated by the mentalcontent of others. A true sage - a Taoist - is not a teacher,

per se. He wishes to preserve the mental sanctity ofthose with whom he comes into contact. A traditionalteacher infects the minds of others, and does so because

on a fundamental level he does not truly value himself orhis ideas. He wishes to share because he holds nothingsacred. He wishes to pollute the consciousness of othermen because he has no idea what consciousness is, andbecause he covets the applause of the world he hasinfected. He is not in love with philosophy, but with the

powerof philosophy.

Philosophy can elevate a man, but it can also destroy aman. Philosophy is powerful because knowledge ispowerful. Knowledge can raise a man to great height orcast him into the depths of the abyss. As the Englishpoet Alexander Pope wrote in his Essay on Criticism:

A little learning is a dangerous thing / Drink deep, ortaste not the Pierian Spring

Another English poet likewise mused on the meaning oflife, and on the role of the teacher:

The poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness andsings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds

The author of these lines, Percy Bysshe Shelley, detestedall human institutions with a passion. He knew them forwhat they are. On governments, he wrote:

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessnessand vices of men that make it a necessary evil. Whenall men are good and wise, government will of itselfdecay.


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What he means is that when all tyranny is gone from theminds of men, then the world will be good.

But how is such a state to be achieved? Well, I amconvinced that it will exist when men cease sharing theirideas or presuming that their own meaning is

comprehensible to other people. This pestilential thoughtis the main cause of tyranny and derangement in theworld. The ideas that arise in ones mind pertaining tothe meaning of existence need to remain at their point oforigin. The root of philosophy is the Self and the end ofphilosophy is the Self. Weaken or remove the latter andyou simultaneously weaken and remove the former.

The great German Idealist philosopher Georg WilhelmFriedrich Hegel believed that religion - and the control isexercises over mens minds - comes into existenceduring periods of history when men operate mentally at

a primitive dimension of self-consciousness, with either anon-existent understanding of their own divinity, or anindistinct or even erroneous understanding of it. Whenmen realize that they can each grasp the Absolute, Hegelbelieved that there will be no further need forexploitative religions or, for that matter, governments. Inshort, I believe, he was making the same point I am.

A return to true higher self-awareness immediatelyserves to deconstruct falsehood in whatever shape ittakes. The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, who isoften considered the father of Existentialism, believedthat salvation was available only to the man who enteredinto a profound personal relationship with Jesus Christ.He did not mean it in the sense that the averageChristian would endorse. Not by a long chalk. Hebelieved that it is supremely unimportant whether thereare other believers or Christians in the world. That hasnothing to do with the man who has a personalrelationship with Jesus. In short, Kierkegaard was chaffingagainst the overt collectivism to be found in Christianityand religion in general. For him such collectivism had toend if there was to be hope for the future. Clearly,Kierkegaard understood that unless man turns inwardthere can be no salvation. I think he was quite right, inthat regard.

When one man communicates an inner truth to another,he automatically becomes a collectivist. This is becausehe assumes that the person before him understands thesubject matter in the same way as he does himself. This


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assumption is false, because no one man can interpret orunderstand anything in the same way as another. In fact,no man should. The attempt to do so erodes a manshumanity. It compromises an individuals Being.

Of course, I hear you declare me to be contradicting

myself by writing these words. Am I not violating my ownrule? Well yes and no. Yes, because I communicate thisfact to you the reader, and no because I am not sharingmy innermost understandings about life. Those I keep tomyself. This work constitutes a much needed street signwarning of danger ahead. I seek only to clear awaywreckage that prevents each individual driver fromtaking the scenic route to his own truth. I am drawingattention to the cul-de-sacs that lead nowhere. I bend myown rule in order to offset continuing egregious fallout.

I am not, however, cajoling the reader to stop what they

are doing. If a person wishes to explore the cul-de-sacsand drive down crater filled roads, that is fine by me. Iknow that most people are lethally afraid of truth, andwill do anything, anything at all, to avoid facing it. Theycertainly do not want to examine themselves or lookwithin. They prefer to wait for some expert to deliver thegoods. Science is progressing leaps and bounds.

Technology is going great guns. The answers are justaround the corner and time will tell. There is no need forme to do anything special. I can just sit back and let theboss hogs explain what life is all about. So has it been forgenerations.

Yes collectivism works for the masses of mankind. It letsthem right off the hook. Take a look at the state of theworld. Take a good hard look around and remember thatthere is a reason for everything you see, as well as foreverything that you prefer not to see.

It is not a priority for me to use this site for critiques ofthe work of the worlds philosophers. That kind of thing isto be found elsewhere. In fact, I admire the greatphilosophers and think a great deal of those with whom Ido not necessarily agree. My work here is dedicated to asingle concept concerning the public expression ofpersonal convictions about meaning and existence. I holdthat this habit is mistaken. My point was poeticallyphrased by Nietzsche:

Alas, I can see that you do not know what it means tobe alone. Wherever there have been powerfulsocieties, governments, religions, or public opinions -


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in short, wherever there was any kind of tyranny, ithas hated the lonely philosopher; for philosophyopens up a refuge for man where no tyranny canreach: the cave of inwardness, the labyrinth of thebreast; and that annoys all tyrants

Of course, the critic immediately responds by askingwhat humanitys fate would be if philosophersthroughout the ages had not expressed their innermostthoughts. What state would we be in if they had andcodified and disseminated their insights? Apparently,humanity has been deeply enriched by the wisdom ofphilosophers. On one level this is true, but it is a matterof perspective. I say this because we had betterunderstand that various philosophers have also beenardent apologists for monarchy, imperialism, tyranny,mass control, socialist statism, Communism andCommunitarianism. The so-called New World Order, with

its Orwellian facets is, as a political and socialphenomenon, directly traceable to philosophical theoriesand outlooks held and promulgated by many illustriousthinkers, such as Plato, Nicolai Machiavelli, ThomasHobbes, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, GeorgeFriedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner, J. B.Watson, Bertrand Russell, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, LeoStrauss, Francis Fukuyama, Amitai Etzioni, and so on.

Contrastingly, great wisdom has, through the ages, beencommunicated by poets and musicians as well as byphilosophers. The creations of the minstrel and thedramatist are no less rich with meaning, and have alsospurred men to contemplation and achievement. Greatnovelists, such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Blake,Dickens, Hugo, Hardy, Hesse, Lawrence, Camus, and somany others, have delivered profound wisdom throughtheir literary works. Their portrayal of protagonistsnegotiating every day situations and problematicrelationships communicate great truths no lesssignificant and empowering than those addressed byacademic philosophers. Additionally, the wisdom foundin the works of great authors and musicians isconsiderably more accessible than that found in thetreatises of most philosophers. Consider the layers ofmeaning in the works of Shakespeare, James Joyce, andHerman Hesse. Consider the wisdom that is downloadedevery time one gazes at a painting by Peter Breughel,Van Gogh, or Rene Magritte, or that which bathes thesoul when the music of Beethoven and Handel is played.Music and art (aesthetics) communicates to the entireself, to the whole brain, not merely to the intellect. It


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might be argued that the individual is more personallyinvolved in artistic processes of communication. To readand truly appreciate Hardys Jude the Obscure orShakespeares Hamlet, is to project oneself into thesituations described. One becomes the protagonist. It isnot the fictional Jude who experiences anything, but the

reader. The work of the artist is brought to life by way ofour imagination.

In philosophy, the philosopher calls the shots andexercises control. He uses his knowledge as a weapon ofsorts, and a powerful weapon it is. With it he seeks toconquer the territories of his predecessors, and with it heseeks to enthrall and disarm the seeker who comes hisway. With his knowledge he commands and conquersand, in his own way, he establishes a dictatorship, albeita dictatorship of ideas.

The true artist on the other hand wields no weapon andseeks no conquest over minds. His art does not come tohim for that purpose, nor is it expressed so. To be movedby Handel or Chopin, we ourselves must let the musicenter deeply into our being. That other people are moveddoes not do much for us. It only matters that we aremoved. Ultimately, it does not matter one jot if a singleother person gets it or shares the experience. Indeed, ifany deep experience is shared, it is surely weakened.

This is because the very company of other people erodesour sense of Selfhood. This was pointed out succinctly byLeonardo da Vinci who wrote:

If you are alone you belong to yourselfIf you areaccompanied by even one companion you belong onlyhalf to yourself, or even less, in proportion to thethoughtlessness of his conduct; and if you have morethan one companion you will fall more deeply into thesame plight

How the planet would change for the better if thesewords were heard aright and embodied. What freedomawaits the man who realizes that it is perfectly correct tohave an ideology or belief system. As long as it is kept tooneself, that is. Every mind is an individual mind, andevery philosophy is an individual philosophy. What makesus want to shout it from the rooftops like a dementedmullah?

Yes, the answers and solutions to the present state ofdecay are simple. Too simple, perhaps, to be acted on byvain worldly men obsessed with the rightness of their


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ideas about ideas. Such men fail to see how they haveimprisoned their minds behind the walls of their preciousideas and the belief that humanity will benefit from theirefforts to disseminate their knowledge. It is a verycaptivating notion.

Apparently, the teachings of philosophers haveilluminated the world. But would the minds of men reallybe in darkness if this was not the case? If wisdomremained within the heart of the sage - its discoverer -would it still not have had an enriching effect on theworld? Does wisdom have to be communicated in wordsto have a positive effect? Perhaps not. Speech andwriting are not the only forms of communication.

Would the world be a better place if philosophers hadremained silent? The dissenting voices, unresolvedquandaries, and chaos of incompatible and often

irrational ideas, cant be said to be overly interesting orinspiring. Indeed, many good people have turned awayfrom dedicated speculation and inquiry because of thepoverty of so many systems that have either failed orbeen found inherently flawed.

The world may have been more enriched by silence,because the silence of which I speak would have beenpregnant with meaning, not of systems and ideologies

per se, but with the profound weight that comes wheneach human being contains within his being the wisdomthat needs to be there. No matter what flickering candlesilluminate the darkness, they do not cast the same lightgenerated by a soul infused with its own cultivatedwisdom. It is this light that has been missing formillennia. So I am not saying that no light has come tothe world by way of public philosophical contributions.But I am saying that the light of the sun is of a differentsort than the light of a matchstick. In short, thephilosophy is the man himself, not his words.

This seriousnessis the simple and forthrightseriousness of someone who has at last arrived at hiscenter, and who is, therefore, at last totally engagedin the project of his life, with all that it entails. This

person exists under the eye of eternity, and thereforewhat he does in the moment is absolutely real -William Barrett (Irrational Man)

Bring forth that which is within you, are the words of theGnostic Jesus. The masters words, preserved in theGospel of Thomas, were addressed to the individual not


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the mass. Bring forth that which is within you and youwill be saved. Do not bring forth what lies within and youwill be lost. Dont wait for your salvation to come by wayof another person. That is the egregious folly that hasdriven the world toward perditions gates.

In another place in the aforementioned Gospel, Jesussays "Many stand outside at the door, but it is only thesolitaries who will enter into the bridal chamber. Inanother place we find this profound counsel:

When you know yourselves, then you will be known,and you will know that you are the sons of the livingFather. But if you do not know yourselves, then youare in poverty, and you are poverty

How this advice was misrepresented and skewed by the

architects of disaster, the Churchs pontificators anddogmatists. Theirs is not a message to the individual.

They despise individuality and are unadulteratedcollectivists. Their own works betray the fact:

Nothing is more poisonous, harmful or devilish than aman in rebellion - Martin Luther

For God wants to save us not by our own but byextraneous justice and wisdom, by a justice that doesnot come from ourselves and does not originate inourselves but comes to us from somewhere else...that

comes exclusively from the outside and is entirelyalien to ourselves - Martin Luther (Vorlesung uber denRomerbrief)

Nor can you find any other remedy than do denyyourself and discard all selfish considerations, and todevote your whole attention to the pursuit of thosethings which the Lord requires of you - John Calvin(Institutes of the Christian Religion)

The fear mongers do not hesitate to remind theircringing followers of the consequences of rebellionagainst the dogma. The message in a nutshell, evidentfrom their own exhortations; tyranny is good, freedom isbad:

The man that will do presumptuously, and will nothearken unto the priesteven that man shall die (Deuteronomy 17:12)


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Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with allrespect, not only to those whose are good andconsiderate, but also to those who are harsh. For it iscommendable if a man bears up under pain of unjustsuffering because he is conscious of GodBut if yousuffer for doing good and you endure it, this is

commendable before God- (Peter 2:18-21)

...even if those in authority are evil or without faith,nevertheless the authority and its power is good andfrom God...therefore wherever there is power andwhere it flourishes, there it is and there it remainsbecause God has ordained it- (Vorlesung uber denRomerbrief)

In Corinthians, Paul transcribed the words of Christ: Youare the temple of God. For the temple of God is holy,which temple you are. Why is this edict so difficult to

comprehend? It should be clearly understandable. If thetemple of God is within, then why do we need any otherperson, external to ourselves, to open its doors for us?Do not other people need to open their own innertemples? I can only imagine that they do. So, it is notperfectly logical to assume that no man can or shouldattempt to assist another person to open the temple oftheir own being? Surely, such an act, were it evenpossible, would constitute a violation. After all, how canwe trust another person to intervene on this level? Andwhy would we wish to relinquish our own power toanother in this regard? Is the adventure of finding andaccessing the temple of God within our own hearts notsufficiently appealing to make us want to experience italone? Apparently, the consummate collectivist does notthink so.

As mentioned previously, I do not seek to critiqueindividual philosophies, only to inquire into the reasonwhy theologians and philosophers are compelled todisseminate their thoughts and opinions to the world atlarge. What lies behind that impulse, and is it a goodthing? As the lights of a metropolis blot out the naturallight of the stars, so has the tangle of broadcasted ideasand thoughts veiled the natural light of innerintelligence. The true light of true thought has long beenabsent from our world. It is time to bring it back.

Sadly, this is not a project that the average collectivistwill sign up for. A colonized and collectivized mind doesnot usually second guess its immersion in theConsensus Trance. On the contrary, it is predisposed to


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defend its participation. Such a mind tends to bethreatened by dissenters who refuse to do likewise,preferring to do as Nietzsche advised and find the caveof inwardness, the habitat of the true philosopher. Themasses have perpetually ostracized or eradicatedOutsiders who refuse to conform and share their inner

light with the rest of the world. The shallowness of theworld is revealed by an Outsiders very presence and,therefore, he has to be removed.

In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties,nations and epochs it is the rule - Fredrick Nietzsche

The individual has always had to struggle to keepfrom being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you

will often be lonely, and sometimes frightened. But noprice is too high to pay for the privilege of owningyourself- ibid

Ever wonder why we do what we know we should not do?Ever wonder why we think one way and act in another?After all, we frequently act in ways we know to bemorally wrong, and often act hypocritically withoutreflection or concern. An examination of our hypocriticalthoughts and actions could lead us to suspect that eachman is in fact two men in one. We certainly know thatthere are schizophrenics in the world, and we havecertainly heard of multiple personality disorder. However,upon hearing these terms we generally imagine paddedcells and cold white walled asylums. It rarely occurs to usthat the world is full of schizophrenics and disturbedpeople without any real sense of Selfhood. It rarelyoccurs to us that we ourselves could be in such a state.

Our anxieties are not based on thoughts of that kind.They arise when we have difficulty fitting in to the worldas is. When we fail to receive the cues and affectationswe sorely desire, when we cant be super-achievers andattract the admiration of the world, then we experienceanxiety. When we cant conform to the standards oftyrants, or receive the approval of idiots, then we suffer.Our satori lies is being able to lose our identity, not findit. We dont behave and act in accordance with our innerorganically developed morality, but according to theinflexible codes of socializedpseudo-moralitythrust uponus from the time of our birth. As the philosopher AynRand wrote in her masterpiece The Virtue of Selfishness


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It is not mens immorality that is responsible for thecollapse now threatening to destroy the civilized world,but the kind of moralities men have been asked topractice.

Rand remarked that her philosophy sought to free man

from man. I cant think of a more profound statement orendeavor. Paradoxically, her work is consideredinsignificant by most academic philosophers, those whowork within prestigious universities and think tanks.Scandalously, her name is not to be found listed in thevast majority of mainstream compendiums andencyclopedias of American philosophers. Students of herwork know why this is. Her message strikes at the heartof the tomfoolery of shrewd modern academics who havedeliberately preoccupied themselves with one hundredand one pseudo-philosophical issues. Entire philosophicaldivisions now exist to study artificial intelligence and

whether computers are capable of thought. They do thiswithout realizing that they are to all intents and purposesas animistic as pygmies who believe that stones containgods. Well it is not surprising that such nonsense hasbecome a priority today. Having found themselvesintellectually bankrupt in other respects, many so-calledphilosophers now think it more profitable to worryabout the potential intelligence of machines. Thats right;if you fail to find meaning in human beings, start lookingfor it in silicon. Is it any wonder that civilization isregressing?

I refer my readers to the works of Ayn Rand and highlyrecommend her teachings. I encourage my readers tostudy her work, not discuss it with others. As far as myown message goes, I merely restate that I object tophilosophical discourse, and consider it the bane ofmodern civilization. I do not think we have been overlyenriched by it and believe that the phenomenon servesto reinforce collectivism and selflessness.

Many prominent so-called philosophers haveabandoned metaphysical questions. Being and existencemean little to them. They concentrate their energies onimproving ways of thinking. Their prime interest lies inthe philosophy of logic and in computing. For them it is inmathematics that one finds truth and certainty. The headhonchos within reductionist schools (the Pragmatists,Logical Positivists, Behaviorists, Physicalists, Nominalists,and so on) conveniently forget the irrefutable conclusionsof the eighteenth century philosopher David Hume, whodemonstrated conclusively that scientific truth is


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simply based on assumptions and hypotheticalinferences about reality.

A scientist can tell us that water is really H2O, or that itis composed of molecules, atoms, electrons, and varioussub-atomic particles. His discovery may prove invaluable

to machine manufacturing or chemical industries, but ithas little to do with the meaning of existence. Anotherscientist can prove that when one man sees red anothersees green. He can prove that no two people perceivereality in the same way. He can attempt to prove thatconsciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of neuralactivity or that thinking is a purely mechanical operationto eventually be performed by super computers. Again,existentially speaking, none of this has much to do withmeaning. It merely serves to reduce human beings, andtheir differences, to the level of the machine. After all, nocomputer, regardless of its complexity, is ever going to

conceive of the existence of the soul, or of God. That, atleast, is a certainty. In other words, no computer is goingto begin asking if its life has meaning. A computerized

jet may head toward its destination with mind-bogglingprecision. However, it is not going to ever ask itselfwhyit is going where it is. Neither is the man who has beenreduced mentally and physically to the level of amachine.

In his book entitled Listen Little Man! the Germanpsychoanalyst and scientist Wilhelm Reich wrote Werebarely understanding the awful deviation andpathological degeneration of the human animal. He wasbut one critic of modernity who knew that man was notprogressing but regressing. His concern was shared by aplethora of other savants in literature, poetry, music, art,philosophy, science, sociology, and so on. His words echothose of Goethe, Bakunin, Freud, Foucault, Spengler,Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus,and others.

As I said before, the ideas and theories of these men areworth studying. They make a lot of sense. But it isobvious to me that after centuries of great words andworks, the world remains, morally, intellectually, andspiritually, in a precarious situation. There has to be areason, and that reason has to be simple rather thancomplex. It was this conviction that lead me to conceiveof Objectionism. The central tenet of which is that manmust pursue philosophical inquiry and must be evenmore zealous in his quest to discover answers to lifesproblems. He must, however, undertake the Magnum


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Opus in complete privacy. He must work alone and insilence. The work of philosophy is, like dreams, personal.It belongs to the seeker himself and to know one else.

The seeker must not think in terms of ends and of somecommitment to the world. He must not set for himselfany humanitarian end. To do so makes him a ridiculous

creature. It cuts at the root of his being and compromiseshis search, because there is no such thing as humanity.Its just a term coined by sociologists who study groupsrather than individuals. Actually there are onlyindependent men with independent minds. To think interms of helping or enlightening mankind, is to think interms that will achieve the opposite effect. This muchshould be obvious from simple observation. Philosophicalinquiry must convene only when one swears and oath tothemselves, to their own being, so that their holyundertaking will be kept private. Wisdom makes souls,not careers.

Why am I so adamant about this principle? Because Iknow that there are no answers - no sustainable answers- for the man who refuses to heed this edict. I know thatthe intellectual efforts of his entire life will come tonaught and that he may well end his life in confusion anddespair by disregarding this counsel. So it has beenthroughout the ages. Men have not fully benefited fromthe work of other philosophers. They have benefitedsomewhat because the teachings of others resonatedwith their own sensibilities and conscience. Fine, that isgood as far as it goes. It is, however, merely a shadow ofthe real work which must be undertaken inwardly andprivately.

Silence is the soil that nurtures the seeds of intelligenceand understanding. Selfhood is the Archimedean Pointfrom which to view reality. Aloneness is the space fromwhich to conduct the philosophical experiment. It is fromwithin that our answers arise, not from without. The brainand mind are merely processors of information. They donot create the knowledge we seek. That comes from theImagination which has been mistaken for the mind. Thisdistortion is the work of the ego, and it cannot be undonecompletely until there is a return to Selfhood. Selfhood isthe antidote to the egos trickery.

The first stage of attaining Selfhood is abstraction fromthe mass. It is differentiation and individuation, and adeliberate sectioning off of ones own being from the restof mankind. It is a commitment to find out what it is thatmakes one different, rather than the same as everybody


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else. The point was perfectly explained by Ayn Rand:

A genuine selfishness - that is, a genuine concern withdiscovering what is to ones self-interest, andacceptance of the responsibility of achieving it, arefusal ever to betray it by acting on the blind whim,

mood, impulse or feeling of the moment, anduncompromising loyalty to ones judgment,convictions and values- represents a profound moralachievement

Of course, in order to fully comprehend this, one has tofirst realize how far from true Selfhood men have fallen.Each man has to discover how his own mind has beencollectivized. He must discern the difference between themind and the Imagination, the social persona and theSelf. He has to discover whether his thoughts are truly

his own. The great author and expert on Zen philosophy,Alan Watts, addressed this matter in his excellent workentitled The Book: On the Taboo of Knowing Who You

Are:

We seldom realize, for example, that our most privatethoughts and emotions are not actually our own. Forwe think in terms of languages and images which wedid not invent, but which were given to us by oursociety. We copy emotional reactions from our

parents, learning from them that excrement is

supposed to have a disgusting smell and thatvomiting is supposed to be an unpleasant sensation.The dread of death is also learned from their anxietiesabout sickness and from their attitudes to funeralsand corpsesSociety is our extended mind and body

It is vitally important to realize that there is alwaysconsciousness ofsomething, never of nothing. Therefore,as far as man is concerned there is always and onlysomething. Consciousness of Self enables consciousnessof things. (This point was central to the philosophies ofFichte and Hegel.) Consciousness ofoneselfnecessitatesconsciousness of everything else. This is true even forthe most primitive and deranged men. It is therefore astarting point, and leads us to believe that once self-consciousness increases, men will develop a deeper andmore real consciousness of the world. Again, it isknowledge of the Self that is the prime datum. In myopinion, the contemplation of the Self is identical withcontemplation of the world and of nature. As Schelling


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wrote Nature is visible Spirit. Spirit is invisible Nature.Moreover, that which exists cannot return to nothing,only to something. Therefore, we might conclude thatthere is an eternally-existent reality comprehendible bythe Selfbecause of the Self. This reality is self-aware andself-sustaining, It is negentropic. Its consciousness and

energy source are one. This is exactly how the Egyptians,and other ancient races, conceived of their creator gods.It is similar to the Tao (or Way) of the Taoists, and theGeist (or World Spirit) of Hegel.

Be aware, however, that when I speak of turning inward Iam not advocating asceticism or solipsism. I am speakingabout attitudinal rather than physical withdrawal fromthe world. If one wishes to remove themselves from citylife, or live as a recluse, that is their business. It has littleto do with what I am advocating. I refer to the privacy ofthe inner world that one demarcates and sanctifies so

that the holy work of philosophy can commence. The factthat most living philosophers of this age, as well as someof the past, do not think of philosophy as holy work doesnot change the fact that it is. Martin Heideggerfrequently emphasized that the thought which concernsitself with Being - that he referred to as Dasein - is notthe same mode of thought as technological thought thatconcerns itself with objects and apparently externalthings in the world. He understood that consciousness ofSelf is of a different order than consciousness of otherpeople and their existence, or of the world one inhabitswith other people. Heidegger used to German wordsorge, when referring to thinking about Being. Sorgemeans caring.

One fact, above all else, must be understood if one isgoing to make sense of what is happening on the planet.

The fact is that, in most instances, men do not love truthor freedom. In fact, they despise them. They aredesperately afraid of truth and freedom. Obviously, mengo to extraordinary lengths to acquire knowledge, butnot because they are in love with truth. No, it is becausein most cases they covet power. They wish to empowerthemselves and gain control over the world and theminds of other men. They do it to keep busyintellectually and to impress people with their smarts.

They do it as a distraction and to escape the call ofBeing. All of this is a far cry from the love of truth andwisdom, which, incidentally, is what the very word

philosophymeans - the love of wisdom

Philosophy was named after a goddess - Sophia -


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because it is beautiful. It is something worth pursuing.However, it was forgotten that the beauty lies within manhimself and not outside in his world. More explicitly,there are two orders of beauty; that of the world (ofnature and objects), and that of the Self (thoughts andideas). Today, we focus almost entirely on external

beauty, and rarely if ever do we give the other kind ofbeauty the thought it deserves. Nevertheless, if we trulywish to learn why Botticelli, Breughel, and Rousseaupainted as they did, or why Beethovens music has itssuperlative qualities, we had better examine thequestion of inner beauty. It will explain a great deal.

If inner beauty weakens or lessens, the world will turnugly. And it has turned ugly. The beauty within has fadedand the goddess has been transformed into a crone.More philosophizing in school rooms and at round tableswill not improve the situation. More philosophizing

internally will help the situation. Some argue that it ismans function to reason and philosophize. And we cansee the point. After all, man is the only creature on theplanet capable of thinking about thought, or exercisingfree will and choosing his future. He can direct his willand control his instincts and desires. Whether he controlsthem for Selfish reasons or because he seeks to conformto external conditions depends on his core nature. He isfree to choose evil or good, and free to choose what isbest for other people around him or for himself. Histhinking affects his behavior, which affects the world,which in turn affects him. The dividing line betweenconsciousness and matter has never been locatedbecause it does not exist. Conscious and matter aremerely two words for the same thing. They stand for twoways of seeing reality. They represent the perspectives oftwo selves within one self. Theories of this kind weredeveloped and advanced by pioneering psychologistBoris Sidis and by philosopher Henri Bergson, but wereprefigured by William Blake.

That is right, each man contains within himself twopersonalities, so to speak, or two voices. In fact, certainthinkers have surmised that each man contains withinhimself many selves. This view appears to have beenheld by the ancient Egyptians and other antique races. Itappears to have been held by certain Gnostic sects. Inmore recent times, the many aspects of a singlepersonality were reduced to two conflicting facets, thegood and the bad. This schemata was finally expressedin psychological terms, by those who refer to a consciousself and an unconscious self. William Blake explained that


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after the Fall man became a fourfold being who thensubdivided into sixteen conflicting hemispheres. Oncethese facets are reconstituted, man will return to thedivine state from which he originally fell. Carl Gustav

Jung, the founder of analytic psychology, thought alongsimilar lines. He saw the consciousness of every human

as being divided into four hemispheres. Until the fourstates are harmonized, he said, man will be unable totranscend his lower ego and truly individuate.

Beahrs compares the human mind to a symphonyorchestra since, like an orchestra, it constitutes acomplex whole made up of many "part selves." Eachof these part-selves has a large degree of autonomyand each is capable of personal experience. Yet eachis also operating under the organizational control ofsome executive leader (or conductor, to continue thesymphonic comparison). Very importantly, Beahrs

argues that functional co-consciousness operates in"normalcy" as well as in a variety of

psychopathological disorders. He makes specialreference to multiple personality disorder, butqualifies his analysis by adding that every personalityis multiple in that "any human individual is both aunity and a multiplicity at once." Furthermore,"normal" people are only to be distinguished fromclinical cases of multiple personality by the degree ofmultiplicity- John F. Schumaker (Corruption of Reality,speaking of the work of John Beahrs)

Themes of overcoming oneself, of transcending andactualizing complete Selfhood are common to myths,legends, and systems of philosophy and psychology.Clearly, if each man is a divided being with higher andlower natures, he can hardly solve his existential problemby adhering to the council of other self-divided men. Thatis irrational. Yet it is precisely what has been going onage after age. The situation is not remedied because thetravesty is given some scintillating PR. Looking to thecounsel of intelligent deep-thinking men rather than toshallow fools may help us to prune the branches, but itwill not help us get to the root of the problem.

As I mentioned earlier, the philosopher Ayn Rand soughtto free man from man. This means that she sought to re-individualize men and free them from entanglement inthe lives of others. She understood that the socially-entangled and socially-dependent man is not a Self. He isa receptacle for the beliefs, opinions, illusions anddelusions of the many. His thoughts and behavior are


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regulated by the society in which he lives. In order to getalong and be successful, he to must live in a state ofperpetual self-deception and self-forgetfulness.

With this in mind, we can see that it is quite impossiblefor a so-called rational man to discover the truth about

reality and existence as long as he remains self-deceived. When self-deception ends, man will know thetruth, but not before. And one cannot end self-deceptionuntil they are able to look deeply into their own Beingand connect with their own core reality. The reality ofnature is on the surface, visible to all. The reality of eachhuman being is, however, veiled and far from consciousapprehension. The tumult of the world and of the lowerego keeps its voice from being heard. We have beentrained to prefer to listen to the cacophony of opinions inthe external world instead of to our own inner oracle. Weembody and arrange the ideas of the world in whatever

way is pragmatically satisfactory, and end up by thinkingthat our particular precarious arrangement of externallyacquired information is the truth. But no matter how weconstrue it, and no matter how much we lie to ourselves,we cannot replace inner knowledge with collectiveknowledge without inviting disaster.

Mass consciousness can acquire a lot of information, butit will never fathom what makes each individual tick. Anindividual mind, on the other hand, can know what thereis to know about mass consciousness and about itself.Mass consciousness is nothing without the human mindsthat constitute its existence. However, the human mindcan certainly exist without the collective cacophony. Inmy estimation, the existence and intelligence of thehuman is of a higher order without it.Self-realization is necessary before God-realization wrotethe ancient Vedic scribes. Know thyselfwere the wordsinscribed at the site of the Delphic Oracle in Greece. Theunexamined life is not worth living, declared Socrates.Let no one who can be his own belong to another, saidthe great sage Paracelsus. The Gnostic Jesus asked mento examine themselves. The Bible contains passageswith the same message. However, something has gonewrong somewhere, because if true knowledge andenlightenment comes from knowing oneself, why havereligions and codified systems arisen? Why do most, ifnot all, religions speak of emptying oneself out, and oflosing oneself (kenosis), in order to know God? Whydoes one man deem himself worthy to instruct others?

The answer is simple, and has already been stated


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above. Men, for the most part, do not love truth. Theyseek knowledge because of what it can do for them, andfor the way it makes them feel. Possessing greatknowledge does not necessarily make a man good ormore self aware. It does not necessarily change a manscore nature. It may only serve to embellish his persona

or lower ego. It may bring him worldly status andadmiration of the collective. It may give a man theimpression that he is special and semi-divine. It may turnone man into a saint and another into a human devil. AsPlato said: Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be notvirtuous. Machiavellis prince was a smart cookie withoodles of knowledge about psychology and humanbehavior. He was also a veritable tyrant whose identitydepended on those under his rulership. As Hegel knew,the ruler or lord is as much a slave as those hedominates. In the end, he is overthrown not by hisunderlings but by his own fear.

In conclusion, I emphasize again that collectivizedknowledge is a shadow of Self-knowledge. Only theSelfish man can know truth. The Selfish man is not thecommon narcissist who actually detests himself. He isnot the vain man who proclaims himself to be somethinghe is not. He is not the arrogant man who gets his kicksfrom humiliating others. Nor is the pompous man whoseeks to aggrandize himself by helping others. He findshis own light and knows he cannot find it for anyone else.He is vigilant when it comes to his own psychicsovereignty, and equally vigilant when it comes to thesovereignty of others. He refuses to become psychicallydependent on others, and refuses to permit others tobecome dependent upon him.

The others have become installed in our hearts, andwe call them ourselves. Each person, not beinghimself to either himself or the other, just as the otheris not himself to himself or to us, in being another foranother neither recognizes himself in the other, notthe other in himself. Hence, being at least a doubleabsence, haunted by the ghost of his own murderedself, no wonder modern man is addicted to other

persons, and the more addicted, the less satisfied, themore lonely- R. D. Laing (The Politics of Experience)

The Selfish man encourages everyone he knows to standalone and lean on no one. He is Selfish because heknows there is nothing holy about collectiveconsciousness. Gaining the entire world and losing hisown soul is not considered a good bargain for him. In the


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pseudo-reality of other men, he stands as an Outsider, arebel against every form of mental and physicalregimentation. He puts men before causes, and truthbefore tradition. He puts no man above himself becausehe seeks no guru, guide, or savior. He puts no man belowhim because his sense of greatness is not achieved by

way oppression and malign intrigue. His greatness lies inhis unique relationship with Being. He truly Exists, andhis communion with Being gives his life an immediacynot shared or known by his fellows in the world. So deepis his Self Love that he alone experiences what it meansto know and love the world.

A man is murdered one minute, while at the sameinstant, somewhere else in the world, a child is born. Theworld pays the paradox little mind, because the world isasleep. The Outsider is awake!

Do you deny me entrance to heaven, I who have atlast learned the mystery of myself? (Egyptian Bookof the Dead)

objection ism

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