Tag: philosophy

I reread Patanjali’s sutras, this time commented by an Indian mystic. What a difference! What an abyss separates him from the master doctor specialized in metaethics and philosophy of language! I lack words… The mystic’s concise comments are intended to facilitate the practical understanding of the sutras; they aim, in short, to uncomplicate any ambiguity they may contain in the work. The confrontation with the master doctor is heartbreaking… It seems that the Western specialist puts himself in an intellectual distance that borders on stupidity. He isolates himself from what he analyzes, draws endless comparisons, as if he were aiming for perfect knowledge of the etymology of the words studied, but indifferent to grasping what they represent. He loses himself in an irrational subjectivity, because it is simply absurd to cut the link with reality from a serious study. It is the scientist who knows the technical details of an experiment whose purpose he ignores, the meditation expert who has never meditated. The three hundred pages of commentary to my Yoga Sutra teach less about yoga than Crowley’s one-line summary: “Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out!”—a summary which, I bet my right arm, never crossed the master doctor’s mind.

When certainty is not possible, or is a matter of nature, a man must be courageous enough to act guided by clues. A clue shrouded in thick darkness must be satisfactory, he must cling to the little he has—otherwise, he locks himself in inertia. So, find the clue! Find it and hold on to it firmly! Follow the path suggested by it and hold on to the possibility—because this is, without a doubt, better than nothing.

However irrational and uncomfortable it may be, it is compelling, for the one who sees, to admit that there are coincidences so striking, so incredibly expressive,—though sometimes of obscure significance,—that to deny them or even to keep silent about them seems unworthy of the appreciation of honesty. “Coincidence” is an incorrect term, “chance” a justification that affronts the intelligence capable of simple mathematics, which soon rates it as an inadmissible absurdity, the greatest of all possible absurdities. From this, unfortunately, no safe conclusions can be drawn, no certainties can be extracted that fully clarify the mystery, but it seems nobler to say what is seen with conceivable words instead of denying the patent for the inability to express it.