I. The final journey.
I will make a road in the wilderness, rivers in the steppe-Isaiah
1.
would be good to write these things before they are lost for two thousand years.
Please do not misunderstand. What I have to say is everywhere: in the air that we breathe in every falling leaf, every single object we see. Be aware of it and break the spell of fairy tale in which we are wrapped-that's another story.
followed by a strange tale: strange, because it is the story of the origins of our history life. If it were something else, if it were just things that happened in the past, then we would be free to continue to forget. But it is not, this story will not leave you alone and will not give you peace.
Very often try to convince us that we are living hard, fulfilling lives. But there is always something that troubles us, ambition, dissatisfaction are just a shadow. It will continue to tear our hearts until we will begin to recover what we lost.
Maybe you're tempted to believe this story. If you were to believe kindly let me warn you, as you could find yourself having to give up your beliefs. Mail at stake is high.
You may assume that there is a kind of happy island where you can get things in two different ways. But trust me, in my experience I can tell you: there's not much. If you do not want to abandon your beliefs, you just ignore what I'll say.
In both cases, it makes no real difference to me. My job is only to tell the story-that's all. And also: there are things that, once they have been told, can not be retracted.
They are written on the stones.
And what is written on the stone of your business. And you're the stone.
2.
Towards the end of the sixth century before Christ was born someone called Parmenides.
His homeland: a small town called Velia in southern Italy.
But if we are to understand the context in which Parmenides lived, is not sufficient to focus on Italy's south-indeed it is quite inadequate.
The city of Velia was born and built just a few years before the birth of Parmenides. The people who founded it was Greek by birth, and were known as Focei, Focea because they came from a city hundreds of miles away from Velia to the east on the west coast of Turkey. It was approximately 540 BC when the Persians drove the Focei from their old home town forcing them to wander in the Mediterranean, back and forth on and down, looking for a new place to settle and live.
The story of their wanderings in search of heroes, the heroes lost, of men and women with children that bind their lives to whether or not to respond to an oracle who speaks in riddles of Apollo is like a historical novel that dismissing it as they wanted to ignore the story invented. But a certain kind of discoveries here and there in recent years have shown how much truth it contains. And: when is the story of Focei, piece by piece, we must open our minds. For people like them, was a reality and fiction that we are delighted to report as the facts of the stories were the result of the invention.
In all this drama that brings the final arrival to Velia, in that brief period before the birth of Parmenides, a consideration that it should be kept in mind.
Focei is that the people were very, very conservative. After that they went to the west of Anatolia kept their ancient customs intact and unchanged for centuries, almost a thousand years. Even in their difficult situation, with the Persian army at their doors without a moment to lose or waste, their priority was to recover every single object that would help them keep track of their religious traditions without interruption, wherever they were able to go.
might seem a little important, not worth much attention. But our story is pretty crucial.
Focei I may seem a small people, small. But appearances can be deceptive.
3.
You may be wondering why I worry and worry, with these details.
Everything to do with Parmenides.
This man has played an extraordinary role in the West, almost inconceivable: shaping the world and the culture in which we live.
chances are good that you've never heard of Parmenides, and there is a reason for it. Has always dominated the strange tendency of scholars to keep him behind the scenes-even when writing him. There is something in the Parmenides, which transcends our understanding of family patterns.
a long time now Parmenides has been recognized by experts and historians as the founder of logic, the founder of rationalism. And as you can see from this expression, not just a question of who assumes special significance for scholars of the past. Nor is it because of its importance in laying the foundations of philosophy and science, the whole process of modern education. What is really at stake here is the more critical of everything.
deals with the origins of our Western culture, how we think and reason. And this is something that touches us all deeply.
Discuss with reason and logic is quite simple. But understanding what they are, catch a glimpse of what to hide, it's something completely different. The fact is that what we have done to describe logic and reason is only a trick, considering them as what they are not.
Company is one of those things-as-common sense that everyone is assumed to know its meaning. Even as children we are told to be reasonable, forcing us to do what others want. We are all convinced they have a clear idea of \u200b\u200bwhat the reason. But there's no one there has the. More
you feel closer to more the idea becomes vague. And the more you feel to get close to people who claim to be very rational and more are being irrational. We live in a world of shadows without realizing it, or understand what is happening. We
logic, which is also not what it seems-or what was once. Originally it had nothing to do with complicated formulas and calculations bizarre. His intent was to arouse awareness: to tap into and transform every aspect of human beings. What we now consider how logic can be likened to a baby who is distressed about the importance of the shoes of his mother. With our endless debates and scholars over the last two thousand years on religion and rationality, logic and science are no longer able to grasp the reality and we act like babies. Now is the time to start to grow.
The people whom you want to talk about in this book is not imaginary. And do not come from Central America or India or some far more exotic paradise of the East but from the roots of Western civilization. They form the roots of our Western civilization are the sources of our culture. Slowly, gradually, they have been misrepresented. And, as a consequence, we can no longer understand ourselves.
We are all part of the story: this is a book of which we are the pages. The
implications of this misunderstanding are extraordinary. So important, all-encompassing, that we can hardly fathom. Perhaps the easiest way to describe the situation would be to say that two thousand years ago in the West, there was a gift-and we childishly we threw away the instructions. We knew what we were playing with. And, as a result, Western civilization could be nothing more than a failed experiment.
The writings of Parmenides, and others like him, survive in fragments. Scholars have devised all sorts of games with them. For centuries they have continued their experiments twisting and torturing these fragments until does not appear to provide a way exactly opposite to the original. Then continue to endless disputes about their meaning and putting them on display as exhibits in a museum.
Nobody really knew what they were important.
Although these fragments survive in crumbs and pieces, they are much less fragmented than ourselves. And much more than words, death. (Even though They survive only in bits and pieces, they're making are less Fragmentary Than We Are. And They Are Much More Than Words-dead page. 21). They are like a priceless treasure-mythological object that has been lost and abused and needs to be rediscovered at all costs.
But this story is not mythology or fiction. It is straight line. Fiction is like being seated dreaming about a gold mine of gold, is all that happens when you forget that.
There is absolutely nothing mystical in what I'm saying.
is very simple, very realistic and practical. We are inclined to think of having your feet on the ground when we deal with facts. And yet the facts do not in themselves have no meaning: it is very easy to fail to extricate themselves with the facts as it is easy to get lost in fiction.
They have their value, and we must use them-but use them to go beyond them. The facts alone are as if they were on top of a gold mine and scratch the powder remains in the same place. (They Have Their value, and we haves to use-but use Them Them Them to go beyond. Facts on Their Own are like sitting on top of a goldmine and scratching at the dust around Our feet with a little stick-p. 21).
All of our events, as all our reasoning, are just a facade. This book is what they have held, the fact that there is hidden. Behind this hidden treasure we find our true home, our heritage, and what we must be prepared if we want to recover it. (All Our facts, like All Our reasoning, are just a facade. This book is about What They Have covered over, about the reality That lies behind. It's about the buried treasure That is our birth-right, Our heritage, and about what We have to be prepared for if We Want to reclaim it-P. 22).
4.
closer we come to Parmenides, the more everything becomes a stranger to us.
The trouble is that we have long since lost the ability to learn from what is alien to us (The trouble Is that we lost the ability to learn from strangenesses a long time ago).
We're scared, our beliefs are challenged, and we feel more involved, the more we feel threatened. This world has become much easier to create a refuge, a fictional world, see only what we see and ignore everything else.
Most modern translations of what Parmenides said to have little to do with the meaning of his original greek. Almost every year there are pages and pages published on the Parmenides-interpreted in the light of contemporary issues and interests, in a continuous division. While it is essential that seems completely disappeared. (Pages and pages are published about HIM HIM Every year-interpreting in the light of contemporary issues and Interests, endless splitting hairs. But what is essential is Most Completely left untouched).
Is there any basic reason that had to be hidden, the essential points that you can not set aside. Absolutely we do not have other options. How can we delude ourselves in the eternal culture and civilization progress. Despite our love for toys creative and destructive, we're going to nowhere. We are like someone who has grasped the handle of a door. The only immediate possibility is to begin to retrace our steps - it's free themselves from misconceptions about our past and what we are. (We are just like someone who has caught a strap on a door handle. The only way forward is to start by going back-is to detach from the misunderstandings about Ourselves and Our past about what we are).
On the basis of the fragments that he wrote, Parmenides is considered as the inventor of logic. And now here we encounter something strange. There was no need to write in poetic form. He could easily use a rather dry prose.
is certainly true that for a long time, he was dismissed as a bad poet. But this view is based on pure prejudice.
dates back to the old belief, formulated for the first time clearly that Aristotle's logic and poetry have nothing in common, and if anyone is worried about finding the truth would be able to become a poet, the result would be a disaster.
The problem is that the poem of Parmenides is by no means a disaster. Some modern scholars have been close to throwing its fragments have a new look and realized that he was able to create a poetic form beautiful and thinner than any language, not just the greek. Again: Parmenides set aside as a poet derives from the assumption that the purpose of poetry is entertaining. As we will see gradually: the Poem of Parmenides had a very different purpose.
And then, regardless of the manner in which he chose to express themselves, one wonders what he actually meant. Certainly
wrote on logic, but only in the central section of his poem, in the second of three parts. Somehow, he flew on the first set and quickly you forget the last part. As you have noticed an important aspect of learning to think requires the ability to focus on one aspect and neglect the whole. Parmenides
explained in detail how he managed to learn his knowledge. Kindly send us suggestions on how we should prepare ourselves if we want to get closer and understand what he has to say. It gives us clear warnings about the dangers, the obstacles we may encounter. But nowadays no one has the patience to take ol'umiltà these indications and warnings seriously. The men rushed right over what Parmenides said on logic, and have become so confident in their ability to ignore the instructions fail to realize how they remained hopelessly tangled.
Our culture has become that which makes us more comfortable, but understand themselves disturb us because the world we live in has been turned upside down.
With Parmenides can not be take shortcuts. Just need to start from the beginning.
5.
And Parmenides all starts as meditating, or scratching our heads, but as such:
The mares that lead me to where I want to ask my
proceeds after the goddesses who guided me along the way
legendary god which leads one who knows
through the boundless unknown and obscure. Still later I was led
and mares, Mindful of the path, led me
pulling the cart, and young women showed the road. The axis of the hub
emitted a hollow sound,
scorched by the pressure of the two rotating wheels
placed on both sides; girls, daughters of the Sun,
who had left the abodes of Night
to head toward the light, his hands raised
night the veils from their faces.
There are ports of the path of the Night and Day,
held securely by a lintel and a stone threshold;
rise to the heavens with giant doors.
And the keys that open and serrano, are firmly held by Justice,
which always demands what is due. And with sweet words the persuasive
noticed the girls persuaded to remove without delay
the bar, the doors closed. And as the doors were opened,
by turning now to one side and then the other, the pins
rods and screws in the empty bronze, opened an abyss. Rapide girls
balances held chariot and horses along the road.
The goddess received me kindly and took my right hand
and gave me the following words: "Welcome, young fellow immortal charioteers,
that you came to our house led by mares.
It was not malignant fate that led you to follow the path
so far from human trails, but Law and Justice.
What you needs is to learn everything, the heart of the well-rounded balance
Truth and opinions of mortals,
where you can not trust.
and still learn this: you must take to appearances
credit if everything is taken into account. "
Already in these early pieces of evidence you can see the entire poem.
A key factor in this strange thing that affects everything Parmenides-determining just how far this trip he might actually get, is desire.
The greek word he uses is "thumos", and "thumos" means the energy of life itself. It is the raw presence in us that we touch and feel, the immense power of our emotional being. Above is the energy of passion, appetite, craving and desire.
Since the time of Parmenides, we have learned so well to guard, to dominate, punish and control them. But with him it is what comes first, at the very beginning. And in this there is a deeper meaning, because what he is saying is that, left to itself-the desire allows us to go all the way where we really need to reach.
With passion and desire can not be any reasoning, even if we prefer to deceive ourselves by believing that there is. Everything we do is argue with ourselves about the form that our desire will be taking. We delude ourselves that if we could find a more satisfying work we would be more happy, but never will. We delude ourselves that going somewhere special we will be happy; but as soon as we got ready to leave and go somewhere else. We delude ourselves if we slept with the lover of our dreams would be fulfilled. And yet, even if we had succeeded, would still not be enough.
What we call human nature is not to say other than being dragged by the nose in a hundred different directions and then finally getting nowhere. But although there is no logic in our passion, it contains an extraordinary intelligence per se. The only problem is that we continue to interfere, we keep dividing it into small pieces, dispersing everywhere. Our mind is always able to corrupt the little things that we think they want rather than the character- the will itself.
If we bear our desire instead of being in search of endless ways to meet and trying to avoid it, we will begin to see what's behind the scenes. Opening a devastating prospect that flips a bit 'all in our concept: where realization becomes a limitation, completely transformed into a trap. It does all this with an intensity that confuses our thoughts and forces us to focus only on the present. (It opens up a devastating perspective WHERE ITS Everything Is Turned On head: where Becomes a limitation fulfillment, accomplishment turns into a trap. And it does this with an intensity That Scrambles Our thoughts and forces us straight into the present).
The poem of Parmenides is not for academics. Do not we learned anything in it. The word "student (scholar)" means, literally, a wealthy man or woman. Scientists are people who have plenty of time, even when they are employed: time to lose, time to kill. But understanding Parmenides is a serious matter. It requires the same intensity and urgency of which he speaks-the urgency of our own being.
So, there's not much time to waste.
6.
In this strange world of myths and mythical beings evoked by Parmenides may seem, at first, that nothing looks familiar to us.
What he is describing there is a Travel to the end of all journeys: a journey beyond any ordinary human experience, "very far from the path of men." But it is natural to want to reduce something unusual in terms more familiar. Basically it happened that a tremendous amount of energy was used to find excuses to travel.
has been set aside as a rhetorical device, an allegory, like a vague poetic attempt to describe how the philosopher leaves the confusion to clarity, darkness to light.
Clearly we are free to use any device trying to get rid of the journey of Parmenides. But before doing so, it would be a good idea to see what he has said.
And the fact is that there is nothing vague about this. Even when it seems vague, it is due to a very specific purpose. Each image plays a part in all entirely consistent. Every detail is contained in a particular context.
Parmenides is guided in his journey from young girls., The Daughters of the Sun They come from homes of the Night well known in Greek myth as the depths of darkness to the extreme edges of existence, next to the great abyss called Tartarus, where land and sky have their roots. This is where the known world joins the underworld, where all the opposites that we feel and experience while live meet.
This is the place where the sun comes back home with his family to rest.
Regarding the gates through which Parmenides is led along the paths of Night and Day, they open the gates to the underworld-separating the world familiar to us from the huge chasm that lies behind it.
and Justice, to guard the gates, is a familiar image again. She is the goddess who rules the underworld: the ruthless enforcement source, the source of all laws.
Regarding the Goddess greets anonymous Parmenides, there is no time to say something on them.
In short, the Daughters of the Sun came taking it from the world of the living to bring it back right in their world. This is not a journey from confusion to clarity, from darkness to light. Conversely, the journey that Parmenides we are describing is exactly the opposite. He is entering the heart of the last night where no human being can survive without God's protection. He is being conducted in the heart of the underworld, the world of the dead.
But there is a demand that had to be answered: a fundamental question.
What did it mean for a person of flesh and blood in ancient Greece-not a mythical or legendary hero-take a trip knowingly, intentionally into another world?
And in particular: how could anyone expect to get off or get to the underworld while still alive, get in touch with supernatural powers that lie beyond, learn from them, then return to the world of the living?
The answer is simple.
There was a special and reliable technique that was used by different groups of people to make the journey into the world of the dead to die before you die. It involved
isolated in a dark place, lying in an absolute silence, remaining motionless for hours or days. Sink in the silence before the body, then eventually the mind. It is this calmness that allows access to the other world, a world of absolute paradox, which leads a total and different state of awareness. Sometimes this condition was described as the very nature of a dream. Sometimes it was associated with a dream, although it was not a dream, but as actually a third type of consciousness is different, however, is the awakening of falling.
They used to use a technical language associated with the procedure, a complete mythical geography. And there was a specific name that the Greeks and Romans gave to this technique. They called it
incubation.
7.
When it has come to this fundamental connection between the journey of Parmenides and the practice of incubation, things start to clear. For example, when
Parmenides meets the Goddess that instruct you on everything, he can proceed on time according to a formula found in the rest of the poem, the Goddess immediately appoint him as a "kouros" word that can be translated as "young", "boy."
scientists frequently ask why, they devised the most unthinkable solutions. But the answer is very simple and yet very subtle.
was already known that the word kouros is not just about physical age. But drew on a complex of traditions and rituals associated with the courage, manliness, initiation, and in particular, with a journey of initiation to enter another world. This other
world is the world of the gods where the kouros is a source of nourishment and guidance that human beings are never going to give him, where if he is lucky, protected by divinity, they could meet the god who became his tutelary deity, teacher and guide.
And there would be another to be mentioned alongside Greek Parmenides.
His name was Epimenides who came from Crete, an island located in the western Mediterranean not far from the coast of Turkey. He, too, wrote in verse, an account of what he had learned in the underworld. It has often been noticed that-just as Parmenides, he felt it important to describe his meetings with the Justice and Truth in another world.
The legends concerning him Epimenides report that after these meetings became known for his role as legislator known as a reformer or something like that. This does not coincide with Parmenides, according to the most reliable sources, became a famous city for its own legislature. Instead, we'll see the importance of such a detail.
And the people on the island of Crete DESIGNATED Epimenides, in their own dialect, as "Kouros". This too, is much more than a coincidence. We learn that the ancient tradition of "kouros" in Crete had direct links with the ancient traditions of another place particular.
was Focea-the Motherland of ancestors of Parmenides before they sailed westward to settle in Velia.
But beyond the designation of "kouros, a reformer or legislator, there is a lot more.
Epimenides was also great reputation as a successful healer and a prophet.
It is said that he recited his poems for the sake of healing. The reforms launched by him found their origin in the prophecy: with his skills could see how justice was running in another world. And the purpose of these reforms was to heal the city as its inhabitants.
There was a word the ancient Greeks generally used to describe someone as Epimenides. It was "Iatromantis", a name that simply means "prophet healer."
And tradition tells us how to become a Epimenides "Iatromantis" after sleeping in a cave for years, making transporting as he lay there completely still, into the unusual world of justice and truth.
In other words, he learned everything he knew through the practice of incubation.
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