/lit/ - Literature

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>>18550593
Bro they're retarded ape men living in a social hierarchy that need to constantly justify their existence and prestige. They'll create pretentious dialog over nothing in order to do so.

>>18550792
and worse, they'll over obfuscate basic ideas with bloated, flowery dialog to come across as more sophisticated and esoteric than others.

>>18550593
>Why are there no western equivalents?
Plato’s cave is one parallel

Also, the British Idealist FH Bradley came up with a metaphysical system that includes the same or similar distinction between reality and false appearances of that reality as is found in Buddhism and Hinduism

btw greeks were the least pretentious people on this earth before the jews corrupted the Mediterranean

>>18550792
Are you talking about westerners or easterners?

>>18550824
westerners made the industrial revolution and everything afterwards happen you little shit

>>18550816
Plato is still far from calling reality itself illusory since it is still modeled after the forms as said in Timaeus, if I'm not mistaken
>FH Bradley
I guess, but I'd like something that can be directly tied to a religion and isn't a standalone philosophical theory. Berkeley qualifies since he was a Christian but I don't think immaterialism is taken seriously by any branch of Christianity.

>>18550826

> However, let us put ourselves for a moment in the position of those who pin their hopes to the ideal of material welfare and who therefore rejoice at all the improvements to life furnished by modern “progress”; are they quite sure that they are not being made dupes? Is it true that men are happier today than they used to be simply because they command swifter means of transport and other things of that kind, or because of their more agitated and complicated mode of life?

>The truth would appear to be quite the contrary; disequilibrium cannot be the condition of any real happiness; moreover, the more needs a man has the greater likelihood there is of his lacking something, and consequently of his being unhappy; modern civilization aims at creating ever greater and greater artificial needs, and, as we have already remarked, it will always create more needs than it can satisfy, because, once launched upon such a course, it becomes exceedingly difficult to pull up, and, indeed, there is no reason for pulling up at one stage rather than at another. It was no hardship for people to do without things that did not exist and which they could never have even dreamed of; now, on the contrary, they are bound to suffer when deprived of those things, since they have grown accustomed to regarding them as necessities, with the result that they have in fact really become necessary to them.

>Consequently, with all the power at their disposal, they struggle to acquire whatever can procure them material satisfactions, the only kind they are capable of appreciating; they become absorbed in “making money,” because it is money which enables them to obtain these things, and the more they possess the more they desire because they are continually discovering fresh needs, until this pursuit becomes their only aim in life.

>Hence that ferocious competition which certain “evolutionists” have raised to the dignity of a scientific law under the name of the “struggle for existence,” the logical result of which is that only the strongest, in the most narrowly material sense of the word, have a right to exist. Hence also the envy and even hatred with which those possessed of wealth are regarded by those who are not so endowed; how could men to whom equalitarian theories have been preached fail to react when all around they see inequality in the most material order of things, the order to which they are bound to be most sensitive?

>>18550864
> If modern civilization is destined to collapse some day under the pressure of the disorderly appetites it has aroused in the masses, one would have to be blind indeed not to perceive therein the just punishment of its fundamental vice, or, to express oneself without recourse to moral phraseology, the repercussion of its own action in that same sphere in which it was exercised.

>It is written in the Gospel: “All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword”; those who unloose the brute forces of matter will perish, crushed by those same forces, of which they are no longer masters when they rashly set them in motion, and which they cannot claim to hold back indefinitely once launched on their fatal course; forces of nature or forces of mass man, or both in combination, it makes little difference, because in either case it is the laws of matter which come into play and which will inexorably destroy those who believed it possible to manipulate them without themselves rising superior to matter. The Gospel also says: “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand”; this saying too is directly applicable to the modern world with its material civilization, which cannot fail, from its very nature, to provoke strife and division in all directions.

>>18550864
are you some spook zionist agent acting like a philosopher or actually worth checking out?

>>18550826
illusion or not, we still live here. westerners are just the best at actually living it while those other hippies just sit around all day waiting for the dream to end. it reminds of how i never manage to nut in a sex dream. thank god for reality.

>>18550873
good point. jews promote anti-materialism to goy while they themselves accumulate wealth and use it to dominate the spirit of others. gold makes the world go round.

>>18550875
A dream is a definition of the experience of someone going to sleep. It's a gross generalization of the process and the actual experience itself and to paint the whole world and universe you experience as a "dream" is an extremely retarded ape-man human centric world-view.

It's not a subversion of common ideals, aka jewish, but it's basically a toddlers idea of the definition of reality and what is some fabrication of reality.

>>18550849
>I guess, but I'd like something that can be directly tied to a religion
The active persecution of people deemed heretical by the Church didn’t leave much room in the west for people to experiment with ideas like that.

Do you count Islam as western? Mahmūd Shabestarī in his poem ‘The Secret Rose Garden’ writes about the world of multiplicity being an illusion and God being the only actual reality.

>>18550881
Yes, and wouldn't it be shocking if humans knew their "spirit" ALSO exists only within the material. But the material is not just "in the moment", and our visible progress as a species should give you a clue on how much potential material existence truly has for the boundless potentiality of existing and being. The material should not be viewed as drab or meaningless.

>>18550873
Rene Guenon is absolutely worth checking out, and he wasn’t a zionist.

https://archive.org/details/reneguenon

>>18550883
But everything is experienced through consciousness so it doesn't seem all that silly

>>18550904
It's silly because you are equating the unknown with HUMANS GOING TO SLEEP.

we have people claiming that we live in a simulation. what is the difference? is it anything but semantics to say this life is real or simulacrum?
does it matter whether the manipulation of this reality is considered a matter of physics or magic? what is the point of the outlook that says this is an illusion anyway? is it just escapism for people who don't want to take responsibility for their lives?

>>18550895
>Do you count Islam as western?
I guess so, thanks for the recommendation. I'd prefer Christianity though, have no such ideas been formulated even among the eastern and oriental orthodox churches?

>>18550912
Simulation theory is the reddit atheist version of idealism

>>18550824
Both hopefully

>>18550930
I agree with you (not the dude you replied to). The idea of simulation solves nothing intellectually and feels like some salt-lick for humans (mental tranquilizing) concept.

>>18550593
There is. The Genesis narrative is something like waking up from a dream - that's how "days" come to be so powerful despite the absence of a sun

>>18550914
> have no such ideas been formulated even among the eastern and oriental orthodox churches?
Not that I’m aware of. Some writers considered important in EO like Maximus the Confessor approach certain eastern ideas in their writings when their Neoplatonic influence is most apparent but they still don’t write about the world being illusory, an appearance etc to my knowledge. I haven’t read the entire Philokalia yet though, maybe there is something like that in there and I’m just unaware of it.

Googling “Philokalia illusion” brought me to this summary of it that mentions illusion, it doesn’t say which passage talks about it though

> The Philokalia is devoted to themes of universal significance: how we may develop our inner powers and awake from illusion; how we may overcome fragmentation and achieve wholeness; how we may attain contemplative stillness and union with God.
https://svspress.com/the-philokalia-volume-iv/

>>18550864
>>18550869
Ah, yes, that bucolic time of dying at 3... Truly the best possible life

>>18550881
>jews promote anti-materialism to goy
Do they?
Why is it that when someone mentions "da juice" there's always someone else accusing them of doing the opposite?

>>18550792
> white people can’t be sophists

>>18551260
wypeepo made dem intellectual infrastructer and compooters and shieeeeetttt

>>18551260
They were even fucked by abrahamic religion but they still fucking twisted this whole world through their collective means. Are you a hapa dude? haha

Read Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts

>>18550593
Heidegger argued that if that Eastern religion/philosophy are nihilistic and anti-identity which Western thought is based upon.

The West will not be saved through a converting to Confucianism or some such, but it may be helped by it.

>>18551500
Western thought is not based upon nihilism and anti-identity philosophy, quite the opposite

>>18551560
>Western thought is not based upon nihilism
https://firstness.org/issues/1#situations-and-territories
"For Socrates, the definition is the basis of the proposition's meaning because the proposition is meaningful, but where does the proposition's meaningfulness come from? The definition of course! The deepest Socratic irony is that this quintessential method of combating "sophistry" is itself perhaps the greatest sophistry of them all."
"The Idea is abstracted from the perceptual (in the ostensive act) and must eternally return to the perceptual (the transcendental empiricism of the problematic). Without this, the circularity of self-referential rationalization cannot return to the problematic, signifying nothing but a linguistic vortex, a nihilistic portal to hell."
"The abstraction of the definition from the situation of planning is therefore perhaps most grotesquely, the destruction of the territory's future. Demonic parasites of abstraction abound in the nihilistic vortexes of circular logic, deploying ever more pernicious rationalizations to assault the very notion of occupancy itself and feast upon our deterritorialized desire. This is liberalism."

>>18550881
Jews are always trying to convince us that we are just meat computers with no soul or consciousness and that we should just be hedonists since nothing matters

>>18551820
>we are just meat computers with no soul
https://www.academia.edu/1502945/The_Last_Magic_Show_A_Blind_Brain_Theory_of_the_Appearance_of_Consciousness

Westerners were a mistake, simple as that. At some point we started to get so caught up in objects and what we could sense alone that we started to think that they were actually real in the ultimate sense and that they were the fundamental parts of the world. The ancients knew that what is called ‘science’ today was actually the lowest and least important form of knowledge, since the material world is illusory, transient and worthless

>>18551838
More cope to avoid the fact that they have an immortal soul

>>18551854
Why do they need to cope with that, it's great

>>18550912
simulation theory is annoying as it never addresses consciousness it just sorta says
>dude what if zomg lol!
eastern religion addresses consciousness

>>18551820
???? when have u ever seen this

>>18551838
Back to /sffg/, Scott.

>>18550912
To take the world as an illusion cultivates detachment, or rather unattachment, which is good.

>>18550593
>>18550593
There're some equivalents, the idea was a common topic in the Spanish baroque (see, for example, Life is a dream by Calderón de la Barca), I'm sure other traditions have it too. I also would recommend Elizondo's History according to Pao Cheng for a kind of "postmodern" approximation to this idea and chinese stories like that of Zhuangzhi's.

>>18550849
>I don't think immaterialism is taken seriously
It's not? Berkeley was a bishop

>>18550593
The world being an illusion is a ghost haunting all of western philosophy, from Pyrrho's skepticism to Parmenides' negation of time, From Descartes' problem of solipsism to Berkeley's transcendental idealism.

bump

>>18552938
>transcendental idealism.
That's Kant

>>18550593
>Why are there no western equivalents?
Because it's a retarded "philosophy" appealing to miserable, 90 IQ serfs who wallow in dung.

>>18551263
Yes.

>>18553758
Dat meen u b rayceess

GUNS germans and STEELE NIGGA

>>18553768
Oy vey that's right goy! You tell that NHATZEE.

t. (((jared diamond)))

>>18553751
You're not wrong

>>18552938
But is there a definitive answer? Or one that is convincing at least.

>>18554432
> But is there a definitive answer? Or one that is convincing at least.
God is the true/ultimate reality, and the world of multiplicity is an appearance/illusion caused by God, like in Advaita Vedanta.

It solves the problem of how can God be truly infinite, while not being identical with the world while at the same time explaining how we still perceive the world. If God is identical with the world, you face the problem of how are you not contradicting yourself by saying God is X while also being Y that has attributes that contradict God’s nature, and if the world is fully real you have to answer how God is different from the world while still being truly infinite/unlimited.

>>18554432
Yeah, it's called the Two Truths doctrine. There are no illusions, just delusions. The West has, ironically, been aware of this from the beginning, it's just been trying to solve the problem from the other end. By constantly trying to have a clearer and clearer picture of reality by taking every finer toothed combs to it.

The fact that Westerners managed to obliterate atomism is just a testament to this.

>>18550593
Much of the Mahayana sutras, such as the Lankavatara and Avatamsaka Sutras, are Central Asian in origin and had some Greek philosophical influence during their development.
Mahayana conception of shunyata is very different from Hindu conception of maya and lila.

>>18551560
No, Eastern thought is nihilistic *TO* Western philosophical conceptions of identity.

>>18555210
>There are no illusions, just delusions
How are they different in your view?

Unreality of Phenomena

Phenomena : An aspect or facet of Reality (Totality of Existence).
All is one, or one is all.

>>18555700
Maybe Asians, while conscious, just don't have souls, and so can't conceive of a coherent personal identity.

>>18555192
>>18555210
I meant an answer in western philosophy

>>18550593
Barroque

>>18550816
it's an allegory, the shadow play means sophism, not that the reality is illusiory, Heraclitus is closer to an Eastern version of this

>>18550593
Schopenhauer is your answer

>>18550956
It's middle eastern book, not a western

>>18557181
Schopenhauer is just a buddhist

>>18555842
not op but delusion implies that our idea on (conscious/daily) reality is wrong but needs further investigation to unveil the truth whereas illusion is a negative which has to be discarded and we seek truth elsewhere

>>18557215
Also influenced by the Spanish barroque, he red the classical Spanish authors and admired Gracián and Calderón

>>18557302
how is that really different? “Needing further investigation” replaces the wrong understanding with the right understanding, the incorrect is replaced with the correct, the very act of correcting the false understanding is a discarding of it by virtue of one not accepting it as true anymore

>>18550593
When they say that these things are like a dream, that just means that they are impermanent and unreliable and that people should focus on what is true and important, or what we would call philosophy. What is the difference between a Buddhist focusing on escaping the cycle of birth and death, a Christian focusing on eternal salvation, and a Stoic focusing on following the law of nature in this world?

>>18557441
but the direction/orientation is different in the case of delusion. think of it as you have an antithesis as you starting point of delusion, then you have your thesis that points you in a synthesis, etc. this is the way synthesis transcends anthithesis, in a forward movement.

in the case of illusion you would have a negativity that doesn't move towards a solution but transcends this movement and rests in its own negativity. in other words there is no movement possible after you reach nirvana, but the movement of the Geist is infinite in time

>>18550792
spbp
>>18550593
easternoids hate themselves and cope with it by making themselves god and pretending like the world isn't real

>>18551279
Crap book.

>>18559274
Yes, now you understand, anon.

>>18553751
this

I refute it thus! *breaks toe kicking rock *

>>18552174
because theyve lived their lives as degenerated subhumans. theyre terrified of the idea of an immortal soul awaiting punishment.

>>18559975
>punishment
It's more like purification, it's always a net positive

>>18559273
> this is the way synthesis transcends anthithesis, in a forward movement.
>but the movement of the Geist is infinite in time
That would imply a continuation of delusions, which are then continually overcome. If delusion is completely eradicated and movement is ascribed to thought or ones belief viz. how it responds to this delusion and plays a role in the antithesis of it, then the complete end of delusion would lead to the end of this movement, there no longer being any delusion to form an antithesis in response to. Any position which involves continued delusions so one can have “movement” would obviously be inferior to one where false understanding is totally eradicated in an instant.

Also, speaking about these terms in these vague quasi-Hegelian terms is not something eastern philosophers do, when trying to get to the root of a concept its better to address it on its own terms instead of muddying the water.

>>18560056

>if delusion is completely eradicated...
yes and it is precisely this what makes it infinite, it's similiar to that there's no overcoming of the evil, it's an infinite struggle. as such it will never end in a nirvana. it's a temporal thing which could never end because time is infinite. whereas from the other point if view it's like time doesn't exist at all. there's no movement in time whatsoever. Hegel was just an example that came to my mind. christians call the end of time parousia where god is one with the world i.e. apocalypse but with the buddhists i don't see any temporal dimension other than rejecting this temporality, it's as if it's immanent and so simple and doesn't exist i.e an illusion.
to be honest I don't know which is inferior on an ethical dimesion i.e. "how to live" but this question is also kind of similar to aristotle responding to zenon when he addresses the impossibility of movement in metaphysics

>>18556343
Heidegger did call them barbaric and ant-like.

>>18560969
before 2010 nobody know shit about asians

>>18560969
based, where did he say this?

>>18559975
Suffering for thousands of kalpas is pretty painful, dumbass icchantika.

>>18561016
>the world started when I started forming memories

Okay zoomzoom.

>>18550593
The Gospel of Truth is a Hellenic equivalent.

>>18550593
>Why are there no western equivalents?
AHEM

Who is the best translator for the I Ching?

>>18563257
Hermeticism is so based

>>18562322
stop larping you dumb orientalist lmfao

>>18563257
>>18564226
half baked syncretic platonism

it's garbage

>>18565657
Guenon (pbuh) in his books refers to Hermetic teachings as being in alignment with the primordial tradition. Stop false flagging by pretending to be guenonfag, no real student and devotee of the Rene Guenon (pbuh) would besmirch things that Guenon (pbuh) praises

>>18550792
What does this reminds me?

>>18564426
Modern Western culture is based on larping as a Jew.

>>18566110
Jews seethe endlessly at Christ and modern judaism is a huge cope against Christianity, try again

>>18565818
there's no doubt guenon didn't read a line of the hermetic corpus

>>18550593
Lacan does.

>>18566707
Lacan was initiated by Guenon himself. I ain't bullshittin you.

what? it's way more thorough in the western tradition. indian is very similar but didn't progress as far. chinese is all about mostly social justification and nuances.

>>18566707
>>18566793
>guy whose daughter had Bataille's surname was initiated by a guy who was also refuted by Bataille
I see a pattern here

>>18566686
nonsense

>>18557181
It's traditionally read in the West & the canon is unintelligible without it, sorry to offend your Copenhauerian sensibilities

>>18566399
Christianity is controlled opposition by Jews in order to enslave goys and make them a part of their narrative of Esau being slaves of Jacob. Europeans are considered descendants of Esau. Kys, Christcuck.

>>18566840
Christianity and eastern religions are the same

>>18566828
guenonfag will claim guenon knew classical arabic and this is proof that he's such a genius but it's been attested by his followers that guenon couldn't read arabic and the only arabic book he owned was the quran

>>18566818
>one would need a facile mind to read with any confidence an author whose haughtiness is so unwarranted

Bataille hit the nail on the head. I continue to be amazed by the level of sheer misunderstanding that Guenon fanboys display about the teachings of Guenon. So few actually understand what he's talking about.

>>18566840
Take your meds

>>18566930
And I continue to be amazed that the only curative measure Guenon fans seem to recommend is reading Guenon.

>>18567612
it's like clockwork, you can even present them excerpts of guenon that proves them wrong and they'll still only tell you to read guenon

>>18555402
Śunyata and Maya/Lila are perfectly compatible from my point of view. The Buddhist view of maya/lila is just another cycle, even if that truly is what is going on, doesn't mean that is the true fundamental nature. Śunyata as a doctrine is emptiness in the sense that space is emptiness, things happen in it, but those things are not the fundamental nature.

>>18567928
Hold up, are you saying that Shankara's rebranding of Mahayana Buddhism doesn't alter the fundamental meaning, despite Shankara giving Buddhist concepts new names?

Shieeeeeeet.

>>18567975
I don't know, I'm not invested or interested in Shankara at all

>>18566914
That has nothing to do with Hermeticism you dumbass

>>18567975
No that's wrong, Shankara's position is totally different from Buddhism.

From Shankara, the Absolute has Its own independent, eternal, inexhaustible self-nature (svabhava), It's existence is not dependent on anything else. And this Absolute is for Shankara also the thing which allows the relative appearances to take place through them being contingent on Brahman existing.

For Madhyamika Buddhism sunyata means that their Absolute or Nirvana is itself devoid of any self-nature, it doesn't have its own independent existence, and furthermore they don't consider Nirvana to be that which sustains and allows for the conditional existence of samsara to take place.

So, on both counts (whether it has its own independent existence/nature and whether it's the ultimate cause of the relative/conditioned existence) both the Advaitist and Mahayana position are diametrically opposed to one another.

>>18568238
I dont think that's true at all if you just read the nirvana sutra and some nagarjuna

>>18568238
No, they're the same. All you really said is, "How can it be the Void when it's the Absolute? Totally different, bro."

>>18568196
prove he read the hermetic corpus

he didn't read anything he wrote about except shankara

>>18568329
>prove he read the hermetic corpus
He cites Hermetic writings and mentions their doctrines throughout his books on metaphysics, including the Emerald Tablet, and he has a whole article on the Hermetic tradition here.

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/Hermes-by_Rene_Guenon.aspx

>he didn't read anything he wrote about except shankara
Where then did he find all the citations of Plato, Aristotle, Taoist writings, Christian theologians, Kabbalistic texts etc that appear throughout his works? What a silly claim to make.

>>18568323
>No, they're the same.
That's wrong. One is consciousness, the other isn't. One has eternal existence, the other doesn't. They are quite different. Maybe if you're an NPC who lacks consciousness the word "consciousness" doesn't mean anything to you so you think its the same as "void", and that's why you think they are the same.

>>18568279
Nagarjuna in his works says that samsara and nirvana are identical to each other, that there is no difference between them, and that both of them are without their own inherent nature. That doesn't leave any room for saying Nagarjuna's Nirvana is actually Brahman, because in Advaita Brahman is different from samsara in basically every single way.

>>18550593
The west evolved away from nonsensical spirituality disconnected from real life a long time ago.

Buddhists are a sect of quitters and their spirituality is worthless
>hurr life is suffering and suffering is the worst
>so I must navelgaze for multiple lifetimes to break the cycle of reincarnation
>why yes my whole goal in life is to achieve nothing except dying and hope I don't become reborn in flesh
>reality is like not real bro so let's just die

>>18552388
>nihilism is good
t. someone who has never and will never accomplish anything in life

>>18568433
Guénon (pbuh) haters BTFO once again.

>>18568497
You dont understand Buddhism in the slightest and sadly you're probably dead set on never doing so

>>18550912
The "simulation """theory"""" is what happens when people who are both philosophically and scientifically illiterate try thinking up something deep on their own.

>hurr what if something unfalsifiable was real
>wow turns out everything we can observe about the world is consistent with my unfalsifiable theory being true
This dumbass """theory""" is just a good reminder that "freethinking" was always a mistake and leads only to brainletism.

>>18551848
>the material world is illusory, transient and worthless
What a dumb le 2deep4u thing to say. Literally nothing maters outside of the "material" world, that's where everything happens and all the stakes are to be found.

>>18568539
>nooo it's le deeper than what you said you don't just get it
lmao, enjoy your garbage cult, neo-buddhist

>>18568540
Yeah, most serious thinkers agree that Dualism is horseshit.

>>18568433
Yeah, he can skim-read alright.

Nobody who has read Plato will say that the dialogues all amount to "banal conclusions."

>>18568972
>Nobody who has read Plato will say that the dialogues all amount to "banal conclusions."
Guenon didn't call Plato banal. You're just seething because Guenon didn't write that Plato was the greatest of all time.

>>18566800
>it's way more thorough in the western tradition
how so?

>>18568455
>can't explain why they're different
>just begs the question
>y-you're an NPC if you disagree

So this is the power of Shankaran dialectic...

>>18568989
Ah, I'm sorry. Guenon said Plato's dialogues amounted to insignificant conclusions, despite being the most original contribution of the Greeks, the rest, if it was any good for Guenon, being thinly veiled plagiarisms of oriental brown people.

It still goes to show that he never read him and but chose to pass judgement on whatever he skimmed.

>>18569025
>can't understand the difference between consciousness and voidness

>>18569089
You can't explain the difference without begging the question.

>>18568455
pure emptiness and pure fullness are the same

>>18569064
>amounted to insignificant conclusions
Saying as Guenon does that the dialogues of Plato provide numerous examples of something which leads to insignificant conclusions isn't the same as saying that Plato's works and teachings "amount to" insignificant conclusions. The former stance is judging one particular aspect of Plato's works+teachings without passing judgement on their sum or total value, the latter is passing a judgement on their total value. You are conflating the two wrongly, is English your first language? Someone who grasps English well shouldn't be confusing those two.
>Plato
>most original
If you ignore everything he got from the Pythagoreans and Egyptians, then sure, maybe.

>>18569134
Very intellectually dishonest rebuttal on your part.

It comes from a passage where he's dismissing the entire accomplishments of the Greeks and then calls Plato's dialogues ultimately insignificant.

>>18569102
Yes I can, consciousness existing means that there is a sentient presence. In voidness or emptiness, there is no presence that is present. Nobody or no presence is aware of the void. With consciousness on the other hand, it is aware of being present, which separates it from voidness and establishes that it's different from voidness.

>>18569119
No, because what the fullness is full of is absent from pure emptiness.

>>18550906
The point is that you can experience things that are totally endogenous without being aware they are endogenous

>>18569146
So Gaynon is ripping off Nietzsche's critique of dialectic but can't give up theology? Lame.

>>18569146
>Very intellectually dishonest rebuttal on your part.
No, I'm just pointing that your crappy ESL-tier understanding of English is conflating two things wrongly. Guenon does say that the Greeks were relatively unimportant but he doesn't say as you wrongly imply that Plato's teachings were as a whole insignificant, only that a particular aspect of his writings were. And in his essay "know thyself" Guenon is seen implying that in fact Plato in real life was more connected with the primordial tradition than those who focus on the rational aspects of his writing always understand, through Plato's and Socrates' connection with the Pythagoreans and the Oracle of Delphi. So Guenon himself even alludes to the higher meaning behind some of Plato's teachings even while he elsewhere speaks coolly of aspects of Plato's writings and the Greek developments as a whole.

>>18569214
"Fuck white people!" - Rene Guenon

>>18569217
You're coping hard and resorting to basedboy ad hominem. The entire chapter is called "The Classical Prejudice" and it's aimed at debunking any greatness of the ancient Greeks. The meaning is exactly the same in French and I can post the screencaps if you'd like.

In the passage he's saying Plato fucking sucks and that all Plato can do is sperg about rationality rather than getting down to deep metaphysics like Guenon's favorite Indians do.

On top of it, he's saying the Greeks have no originality apart from Plato's dialogues. The rest is all a copy of brown people when it's good, and when it's bad, it's the Greeks resorting to questions of rationality and practical ability, which the Indians never ever do!

"Plato is intellectually myopic" - Rene Guenon

>>18569161
what is the fullness full of?

"The Aryan invasion never happened and is a lie from the white devil." - Rene Guenon

>>18569254
This is all true, the traditionalist school is completely anti-Western in attitude, and consider Classical Greece, The Renaissance, and all the heights of Western high culture to be decadent and anti-traditional, because for them "traditional" means Eastern navel-gazing and mystical nonsense.

>>18569254
>You're coping hard and resorting to basedboy ad hominem.
Because I'm making less negative assumptions about your character to assume that you don't understand English that well, instead of assuming that you do but are deliberately being dishonest, I'm actually being more forgiving instead of assuming the worst.
>The entire chapter is called "The Classical Prejudice" and it's aimed at debunking any greatness of the ancient Greeks
Yes, it's no secret that Guenon thought the Greeks were inferior in their grasp of metaphysics compared to say the Chinese or Indians. He never says that Plato's entire teachings are insignificant though, as you were wrongly implying.
> that all Plato can do is sperg about rationality
Wrong, he elsewhere affirms Plato was aware of the possibility of progressing to a higher wisdom beyond rationality.

>It is possible that wisdom could be taught in the same way that exterior knowledge is taught, through speech or through books? This is in fact impossible, as we shall shortly see. But what we can already affirm now is that philosophical preparation was not enough, even as preparation, for it concerns only the limited faculty of reason, whereas wisdom concerns the reality of the whole being. Hence there exists a preparation for wisdom which is higher than philosophy, which no longer addresses itself to reason, but to the soul and to the spirit, and which we may call inner preparation; and it appears to have been the characteristic of the highest levels of the school of Pythagoras. Its influence extended through the school of Plato right up to the Neoplatonism of the Alexandrian school, where it clearly appears anew, as well as among the Neo-Pythagoreans of the same period.
>The saying (know thyself) signifies first and foremost that no exoteric teaching is capable of providing true knowledge, which man must find only within himself, for in fact no knowledge can be acquired except through a personal comprehension. Without this comprehension, no teaching can lead to an effective result, and the teaching that awakens no personal resonance in the one who receives it cannot give any kind of knowledge. This is why Plato says that 'everything that a man learns is already within him'. All the experiences, all the external things that surround him, are only an occasion to help him become aware of what is within himself. This awakening he calls anamnesis, which signifies 'recollection'.
- Rene Guenon

>>18569282
>and all the heights of Western high culture to be decadent and anti-traditional
That's wrong, because for them the heights of Western high culture was the medieval era, which Guenon praised as the highmark of Western civilization and as being when they were most traditional.

>>18569337
He thinks they just stole their ideas from arabs and indians during that time though, and the very peak of the medievals like Aquinas weren't as smart as Shankara.

>>18569277
It depends on what you are applying the qualifier "fullness" to. In the case of consciousness, it's full of itself. Consciousness that is full of itself is different from an emptiness or void that is empty of consciousness.

>>18569346
>and the very peak of the medievals like Aquinas weren't as smart as Shankara.
Well, to be fair, nobody is

>>18569367
Shankara couldn't count past one.

>>18569337
>That's wrong, because for them the heights of Western high culture was the medieval era, which Guenon praised as the highmark of Western civilization and as being when they were most traditional.
Which was the philosophically weakest and most stagnant period in the West. That's my point, for Guenon the absolute peaks of Western civilization, where the biggest philosophical, artistic and scientific progress was achieved are decadent. For him the greatest periods of the West were not ones where high culture was more vital and productive, but when Middle Eastern mystery-mongering became dominant.

>>18569327
Doesn't sound like he read him, but saw a quote once from Plato that he didn't hate.

>>18569358
>Consciousness that is full of itself is different from an emptiness or void that is empty of consciousness.

See how you beg the question?

>>18569400
>Which was the philosophically weakest and most stagnant period in the West
>Middle Eastern mystery-mongering

>>18569467
here come the basedboy reacts

>>18569377
>Shankara couldn't count past one.
retroactively refuted by Sri Shankaracharya (pbuh) himself when he counts to 2 in his writings

>>18569453
>See how you beg the question?
I'm not though, because consciousness means to be consciously present, while void or emptiness don't mean to be consciously present, on the contrary void and emptiness means the absence of such positive affirmations as being consciously present. What is the question you think I'm begging?

>>18569494
Extremely based.

>>18569509
What is consciousness? It is the state of being conscious. Solid philosophizing.

>>18569467
We can agree to disagree, my Christian friend

>>18569509
>consciousness means to be consciously present, while void or emptiness don't mean to be consciously present, on the contrary void and emptiness means the absence of such positive affirmations as being consciously present. What is the question you think I'm begging?

You're doing it even worse now.

If you don't see how, you'll never see it, or at least admit it publically.

>>18569509
so this is the power of the guenonfag...

>>18569541
>What is consciousness? It is the state of being conscious
Yes, while void and emptiness aren't. I don't understand what motivates some people in this thread to pretend that this isn't true or that it's hard to understand.
>>18569604
Doing what worse? Put aside the posturing and just say what point you are trying to make. If you really think complete fullness and complete emptiness are the same, then explain how the absence of conscious experience and the presence of it are the same. If what you say is true then a fullness of conscious experience in a living being such as ourselves should be identical with an emptiness of conscious experience in an insentient object like a rock or in a dead body. However, everything we know from empirical experience as well as logic shows that this is incorrect, hence your claim isn't universally true.

>>18569614
>so this is the power of relativism... that being a conscious human being and being a dead body without consciousness become identical

>>18568497
Based
Buddhism is for NPCs

>>18569542
Middle Ages had fairies and other apparations be commonplace. High christian mysticism. Crusades. Aryan caste system. The people were gleeming White. Seems apex to me.

>>18570280
This, also most people including peasants worked less and had much more time to enjoy the company of their friends and families and whatever else interested them.

>One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night.

>These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false. Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that working hours in the mid-nineteenth century constitute the most prodigious work effort in the entire history of humankind.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

>>18570280
What are some good books on orthodox mysticism?

>>18571762
Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church - Lossky

>>18561064
In private diaries and letters. He saw their religions barbaric and possessed by the masses just like he did their people, even if he took inspiration from them.

>>18566854
Nope.
>>18567605
Nothing I said indicates mental illness. Kys.

>>18573170
>According to Tomonobu Imamichi, Heidegger's concept of Dasein in Sein und Zeit was inspired – although Heidegger remained silent on this – by Okakura Kakuzō's concept of das-in-der-Welt-sein (being-in-the-worldness) expressed in The Book of Tea to describe Zhuangzi's philosophy, which Imamichi's professor Ito Kichinosuke had offered to Heidegger in 1919, after having followed private lessons with him the year before:[2]

>‘Ito Kichinosuke, one of my teachers at university, studied in Germany in 1918 immediately after the First World War and hired Heidegger as a private tutor. Before moving back to Japan at the end of his studies, Professor Ito handed Heidegger a copy of Das Buch vom Tee, the German translation of Okakura Kakuzo’s The Book of Tea, as a token of his appreciation. That was in 1919. Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) was published in 1927 and made Heidegger famous. Mr. Ito was surprised and indignant that Heidegger used Zhuangzi’s concept without giving him credit. Years later in 1945, Professor Ito reminisced with me and, speaking in his Shonai dialect, said, ‘Heidegger did a lot for me, but I should’ve laid into him for stealing’. There are other indications that Heidegger was inspired by Eastern writings, but let’s leave this topic here. I have heard many stories of this kind from Professor Ito and checked their veracity. I recounted this story at a reception held after a series of lectures I gave in 1968 at the University of Heidelberg at the invitation of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Japanese exchange students attended these lectures, and I explained that there were many other elements of classical Eastern thought in Heidegger’s philosophy and gave some examples. I must have said too much and may even have said that Heidegger was a plagiarist (Plagiator). Gadamer was Heidegger’s favorite student, and we ended up not speaking to each other for 4 or 5 years because he was so angry with me’ (Imamichi 2004, pp. 123–124).[3][4]

>>18573170
very cool...has this been translated, I'd like to read the passages

>>18570280
>Middle Ages had fairies and other apparations be commonplace. High christian mysticism. Crusades. Aryan caste system. The people were gleeming White. Seems apex to me.
Fairies don't exist. Christian Mysticism is a replacement of the sound philosophical thinking of the Greeks with Eastern fairy tales. War is motivated by utilitarian concerns, and forms no part of high culture. The Indian Caste system did not produce either a high culture or even the same economical prosperity compared to what was achieved in the West.
If you look at the periods where high culture, which includes science, philosophy and art, was more vibrant and creative, you will find that the Middle Ages were anything but a high point in Western history. This is a literature board, and anyone familiar with the canon knows most literary masterpieces are either from the Antiquity or post-Renaissance. Look at the most important philosophers or Scientists and it's the same thing. This is not to say that the Middle Ages did not achieve anything of cultural importance (they sure did) but the period was manifestly inferior to the Classical Greek period and other Classical periods that are the real apex of Western ingenuity and creativity. But the Guenon cult would have none of this. For them much of the cultural achievements in the West I mentioned are a sign of decadence, "rationalism" and "counter-tradition" and the West has only value to the extend it follows on the path of Eastern spirituality - even though as a matter of fact the West produced a much superior Culture than India did, and part of the achievements of Classical thought was the criticism of superstition and supernaturralism under the name of "tradition".
For those of us who think that to the extend that the West produced a civilization that differed from any other "traditional" civilization in the world, this was a civilization that in fact was superior to many that came before, and its cultural output has not been surpassed by anything still. And against this view would be those who hold that the "Greek Miracle" is really an anomaly and want a middle Eastern religion to dominate the West again, in place of anything distinctly European.

>>18573748
You don't care about European culture truly.
It's just about a retarded competition for "muh progress" with morons like you. You don't care about preserving European ethos beyond pushing for more Faustian striving, hence why you constantly denigrate the Indians.
It's not about superior or inferior on a collective scale. In fact, everything man does in the name of progress is inferior and in fact helps create more complications on a global scale.
The fact we can communicate brings me great pain and distress; the fact you can even spread your vile ideals of "muh science, muh biased philosophical quest for truth" brings me great pain as the oceans become more acidic, ancient forests get shredded down, and so forth.
You will die in absolute misery and pain, which you absolutely deserve, and then you will see your obsession with superiority means absolutely naught.
You can protect and love your culture from foreign influences without always viewing things as a competition.
Eat shit and die, you Faustian devil. The Hindu monk is superior to you on a greater metaphysical and cosmic scale because he accepts his self as inferior to the true Self.

>>18573946
What you call "Faustian" is precisely what European Culture is. All the things you denigrate as decadent are what distinguishes the West from any other civilization in the history of the World. And I didn't denigrate the Indians, I am simply pointed to the fact that their high culture, although admirable in certain respects manifestly did not reach the highs of what was achieved here. Much like Guenon, your position is in a very obvious sense anti-West; You think the unique contribution of Europe in the world was a disaster, a descent into insidious "Modernism". You are entitled in your views, of course, but it is interesting to note the complete bankruptcy of the Perennialist pretension to be pro West while hating everything in Western tradition that didn't come from the Middle East.
And of course the point is not a simple-minded Patriotic or Jingoistic one - Western Culture deserves to be upheld because of its intrinsic value, not because it is Western. But the point remains that if we want to speak in these terms, it is Perennialism that represents an anti-Western current, not "modernism" and Classical Greece.

>>18574094
I like a lot of non-Faustian artists and philosophers of the West.
Also, the West is more than Classical Greece, which in reality had a lot of non-Western influence to it. The Celts and Vikings were actually more Western and uncontaminated by Near Eastern influence.
Greek mythology is not really a pure form of Indo-European mythology.

>>18574118
Everyone is free to decide for himself to decide which elements of a civilization he finds more valuable. As I said my point of view is not fundamentally a Patriotic one and I do not simply praise anything Western. The Vikings were as you said very Western, yet I do not regard them as being of outstanding cultural importance. What I value in the West is what may be called Hellenism or Classicism, the outstanding development of philosophy, art and science, in one word of high culture. I think we may single out Classical Greece, The Renaissance, and Late 19th early 20th century as some obvious examples of such periods of outstanding cultural output, but there are others as well.
Nowadays, indeed, there has been a decline in educational standards. A hundred years ago being educated meant knowing Greek and Latin, which is not the case anymore. Another sign of the present-day weakness of the Classical outlook is that although Classicism used to be the consensus for much of post-Enlightenment European thought, the Classicist point of view is almost completely absent from modern debates on Education. We have the anti-colonization and anti-racist camp, we have various "practical" and utilitarian views (education is about getting a job etc.), we also have Christian conservatives and Medievalists. And of course we have to note here that the "New RIght", supposedly a movement raising to the defence of the West, are not Classicists either and hate Liberalism and Democracy, looking for inspiration rather on ancient Sparta or Imperial Rome or the Middle Ages. I suppose you may be contend with this state of things, since our "Faustian" civilization appears indeed to be heading to a closure.

>>18574431
>philosophy
I think it's best for a society to settle on one guiding philosophy rather than lead to a multiplicity without core.
>art
I think Celtic and Viking art were better than Greek.
>science
Science and technology have doomed this Earth. Science and technology are bad.
>knowing Greek and Latin,
Knowing Ogham Alphabet seems cooler to me. It also teaches people to respect old-growth forests:

"The Ogham script is the first alphabet of Europe, in which every letter is named for a tree or an important companion to trees. What is remarkable about Ogham is that the philosophy behind the language carries a way of thinking about the rebirth of the forest, namely, to consider how intimate the connection is between forests and humans. Legend says that when a young man named Ogma created the Ogham script, nature came calling, because all imagination – even scientific imagination – originates in nature. Young Ogma looked around his neighbourhood and his eye fell on the Druid’s sacred life forms – the ancient forests. So the alphabet of the forest was created. This new writing held the philosophy of the forest and of a millennia of oral culture that went with it."
-- Diana Beresford-Kroeger

>I suppose you may be contend with this state of things, since our "Faustian" civilization appears indeed to be heading to a closure.
I think Neopagans are the most interesting especially if they are inspired by Ludwig Klages.

>>18574553
Celts bonded with the ancient old-growth forests. Their minds became one with it.
Vikings bonded with the sea. Their minds became one with it.
Greeks bonded with abstractions, Geist. Their minds became one with it.
Greeks should have been taken over by the Achaemenids as Nietzsche rightly claimed :D

>>18574553
>I think it's best for a society to settle on one guiding philosophy rather than lead to a multiplicity without core.
If the goal is social stability, that may well be the best approach. But if the goal is attainment of knowledge and the development of an objective or disinterested towards things, it is crucial that a plurality of different views is tolerated, to facilitate open debate and discussion of all issues with no limits or sanctities. And one of the biggest hindrances to the advance of philosophical criticism is censorship for "the good of society" (ie for certain vested interests).
>I think Celtic and Viking art were better than Greek.
Well, Vikings and Celts didn't have an equivalent of Greek theater or poetry. In fact if we focus on literature in particular, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of writers discussed on Academia, /lit/ or anywhere are from the periods I mentioned, because these are the periods with the highest artistic output.
>Science and technology have doomed this Earth. Science and technology are bad.
Science, just like philosophy, proceeds from a disinterested attitude towards the world - an attempt to see how things really are, as opposed to the practical attitude of looking at what we can do with them. To the extend that Science advances knowledge and banishes backwardness and superstition it is to be counted among the achievements of a high culture.
>Knowing Ogham Alphabet seems cooler to me. It also teaches people to respect old-growth forests.
It may be, but Greek and Latin hold special importance for my purposes since they enable immersing yourself to the Classical tradition, a return to which be serve to reinvigorate culture from stagnation.
>I think Neopagans are the most interesting especially if they are inspired by Ludwig Klages.
Neopagans are interested in theology rather than philosophy, unsurprisingly so since it is part of the business of philosophy to combat all theological interpretations of the world and uphold secularism (not in the sense of having religiously neutral law and institutions - rather in being explicitly critical of religion and spirituality and exposing their intellectual pretensions).