John Dunn

The self originates in encounter

Monday, 11 December 2023 at 20:17

The self originates in encounter

Thus spake Eros...

Everyman lives a deluded life, but some are awakened to the divine potential for their being. Whether or not man acts out the potential given by God, his true self is nevertheless kept in God and, contemplated by Him.That is to say the divine potential is constant, and is the true self of any individual, regardless of the deluded persona under which he might exist. The point at which the deluded individual recognises that he is divinely interconnected with another being’s true self is Love. Love transcends the deluded state in which one or both or more true selves are enshrouded, and establishes a relationship of true selves, a communion, however fleeting, during which they more closely track the divine intention given to them.



The cosmic metaphor of Love’s penetration of Ananke’s dreary equilibrium and interminable cycle symbolises the impact of encounter upon the individual. The self originates in encounter, in Love, in the Beginning.

© John Dunn.

To be in accordance with the ‘I’



Sunday, 10 December 2023 at 20:45

Caspar David Friedrich, “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (1819)

To be in accordance with the ‘I’



This self is not an autonomous entity, a collection of properties however unique, haunting a ready-made world; it is, rather, an entity that is realised in a life characterised by being in accordance with divine intention. This is not a forward-looking intention, which would be an idolatrous presupposition. Intention means being directed by the Logos in-the-moment, always now, in the Beginning, forever.



I have already moved to the position of the Logos being coterminous with the ‘I’. In this sense the above should read: this self is not an autonomous entity, a collection of properties however unique, haunting a ready-made world; it is, rather, an entity that is realised in a life characterised by being in accordance with the ‘I’.



What is it to be in accordance with the ‘I’, or the coterminous Logos? It is to be in accordance with living thinking, as opposed to being subject to dead thought, the latter being an existence subsumed in a ‘reality’ of reflected entities understood to be the ready-made world into which we are thrown and must accept. Dead thought is the corruption, or Fall, of living thinking, which is the source of all reality, past, present and future, indeed, everything.

The light of the Logos shines in our world when our thinking remains alive, rather than being lost and reflected back to us as though it represented a presupposed and extant material reality. In this way we are the Logos and our thinking is the Creation that never ceases. It might be said that the Logos incarnates through our living thinking, unless crucified to become the dead thought of material ‘reality’. Even this would not be true, and cannot shake off the idolatry that clings on to our every thought. To think of the Logos entering the world through us is to limit living thinking to the wet spongy matter in our heads.



Living thinking is not limited by the skull, it is cosmic in its boundlessness. The limits to thought are the ‘mind-forged manacles’ of man himself, aided and abetted by the fallen angels that live amongst us. Such limited thought is fallen thought, dead thought, and man is born fallen. It is in Love that the Beginning follows death and thinking lives.

© John Dunn.

The ‘I’ in God and the God in ‘I’

Saturday, 9 December 2023 at 20:15

Those circles, that seemed to be conceived in you as reflected light, when traversed by my eyes, a little, seemed to be adorned inside themselves, with our image

Dante, Paradiso Canto XXXIII, (my underline)

The ‘I’ in God and the God in ‘I’



The essential characteristics of man are common at the universal, but never circumscribe one individual. For example, Peter, John and Paul are human beings and being a rational animal is an essential characteristic of such humanness. Rationality is essential for being the entity a human being; necessary, but not sufficient to be an individual. The essential characteristics are the forms which exist by themselves, whilst the individual carries the forms in the concrete sense.

The individual has essential characteristics that are common, while in addition he has the personal characteristics of being that belong to himself. The essence has only the essential characteristics of the species, whereas the individual has in addition that which is unique to him. Peter is in all respects human being; there is nothing in Peter that is not human. On the other hand, to be human being is not in all respects to be Peter. There is a distinction between being something and someone.



Let us move on from essential characteristics, which might be misinterpreted as being static, to modes of activity. The same principles apply. There are modes of activity common to all. We are all active as being something. However when an individual gives form to a mode of activity, he manifests himself as a someone. The character of being an individual is to give character to the mode of activity. A human being is an individual when he assumes the modes of activity common to all, with a potentiality of power, in such a way that he gives form to those activities as belonging to himself, as a someone. In order to be recognisably an individual an entity must be a someone who gives form to a mode of activity.


There is a further distinction beyond being something and someone, which lifts man above the collective of individuals. To be subject to dead thought is to be a someone who lives out the essential characteristics of humanness as found amongst the ‘they’ into which he is thrown at birth, whereas to live in accordance with living thinking is to be a self, an ‘I’. Let me expand upon this point.



In addition to being a something, distinguished as a someone by a set of properties, which give form to modes of activity, each has the potential to be not only an individual, but also a self, an ‘I’. Here the doctrine, or metaphor, of man being created in the image and likeness of God is helpful. It brings with it not only a distinctive dynamics, but also a mystery, since what we are in our deepest self is hidden in the divine potential for our being as a self.



Tobe a self is not our achievement, but rather originates in encounter, in Love, one might even describe it as a gift from God; God is, after all, Love. This Love is the Originatory Principle which will not be explained. The mystery of an individual’s selfhood is kept in the mystery of the divine being, the Logos, or Love. Whenever we act out the potential that we are given by God, we give form to the mode of action in accordance (or discordance) with the divine intention for our being, as a self.



It is possible to live as divinely intended, but one may also lead a life of delusions separated from one’s true purpose. (One can of course be imprisoned within these delusions by others, but this must be dealt with elsewhere.) The true self is kept in God and the true principles contemplated by Him. One’s self as a mystery is to be achieved in a stretching out for God. One’s self is to be found in Love.This adds a new dimension to the idea that the Logos is coterminous with the ‘I’.

© John Dunn.

The Divine is not something that was there once and is now lost and has to be found again The self is life after death, the resurrection and the creation

Friday, 8 December 2023 at 21:37

The Divine is not something that was there once and is now lost and has to be found again




The self is life after death, the resurrection and the creation

Living thinking at one with the Logos cannot be achieved by the type of thought that used to see the Logos outside of itself, but rather the thinking that draws on the light of life of the Logos within itself, thereby ceasing to be reflective. Thinking that still sees the Logos outside itself is identical to thinking that deifies matter outside itself.
To accept anything as pre-determined prior to the experiencing of it - be it the Logos, or the material world into which we are born - is nothing short of idolatry.



In truth, the purpose of the incarnation of the Logos on Earth is to overcome the idolising of the external, by the living dead, in a Resurrection to new life; but it is not to lead humanity back to the Divine. The Divine is not something that was there once and is now lost and has to be found again. To think in such a way would be to present the Logos as something outside of the self, to be found again, to be presupposed, to be worshipped now and in the future as an idol beyond the self, ultimately an idol existing without the self.

But consider the self. What is it? It is that which is distinguished from what surrounds it. Without the self there is nothing but indiscriminate oneness. It is the realm of Ananke, death. The awakening of the self introduces mind into the oneness, which introduces discrimination. Before the self there is nothing. In the awakened self there is all past, all present and all future, everything.The self is life after death, the resurrection and the creation. There is only Beginning. There is no chronology. The mystery is in the Beginning, and the mystery is Love. Which brings me back to my former statement. The self is life after death, the resurrection and the creation.

© John Dunn.

Deification of God is idolatry…



Thursday, 7 December 2023 at 21:38

What? The deification of God is idolatry? Surely God is the deity and by His very nature is deified. How is this idolatry?

Let us work through the last question.

Deification of God is idolatry…



…just as much as the deification of ‘reality’ is idolatry.



The Logos is not to be treated as an idol, i.e. as something outside of ourselves, to be found again, presupposed, discovered or revealed. Logos is coterminous with Love, God or now the ‘I’. I have also ascribed to each of these the term Originatory Principle, i.e. the mysterious Beginning that will have no explanation. Love will not and cannot be explained.



In this sense, the Originatory Principle is not something over there, separate and apart, waiting to be discovered, or even appearing through self-revelation. Such thinking would be leading us into idolatry. It would be a higher form of the pre-Beginning state of fallen man, who sees everything as pre-given, i.e. the ‘reality’ into which we are thrown and have our ‘being’. God in this context would be one more ‘reality’, in fact the ‘Reality’ above all ‘realities’.

The worship of such a ‘reality’ is part and parcel of the fallen state or life without the ‘I’. Whereas, acceptance of the light of the Logos, through us and into the world, is tantamount to the discovery of the ‘I’. The question is, what must come first to awaken us to the presence of the Logos and the discovery of the ‘I’? The answer is Love, which is present in the encounter, but not before, and is itself the Logos, the inexplicable mystery, the Originatory Principle.

© John Dunn.

Logos 

The Logos and ‘I’ One and the same?



Wednesday, 6 December 2023 at 21:12

Logos 

The Logos and ‘I’

One and the same?



The Resurrection is the recovery of the content of ‘living thought’ at its inception, before it is immediately degraded into ‘fallen thought’, or ‘reflected thought’. This recovery is the result of action by the awakened will. The thinking ‘I’ grasps the direction of the Logos within itself, which is the elevating of itself to its own pre-reflective moment. The awakened will inserts the ‘I’ into the process of thinking.



I reiterate the point made earlier, that the corollary of this is that in normal everyday accepted modes of thought, i.e. reflective thought, the‘I’ is absent. Thus the connection to pre-reflective, or ‘living thought’, before it falls, is not only a connection to the Logos, but also to the ‘I’. This connection to the Logos and to the ‘I’ is tantamount to an encounter with the ‘source of life’ and everything.



Existence prior to the recovery of the content of ‘living thought’ at its inception equated to subsumption in the realm of Ananke, a state of non-being. Thus the Resurrection as the connection to the Logos and the ‘I’ is also the Creation.



Turning again to the connection of the ‘I’ to the Logos, is it a reintegration?Are the ‘I’ and the Logos to be thought of as one and the same entity?

I believe that John's First Epistle grapples with the same question, coming down on the side of unison. 

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

© John Dunn.

To be born fallen and to die risen Creation as Resurrection



Tuesday, 5 December 2023 at 21:51

To be born fallen and to die risen

Creation as Resurrection



We experience a relationship of sorts to the Logos at the very inception of thought.
The Logos is the flaming light, endowed with creative power.This light of fire is continuously extinguished in reflected consciousness. Reflected thought, ‘fallen thought’, has opposed the Logos. The point is that, where thinking is not yet reflected and it hasits intuitive moment, it moves as the light of the Logos. The logical consequence of this is that we must grasp the light before it flickers out. The secret to healing man lies in perceiving the light of fire, and grasping the moment of thought’s inception, which is the rebirth into the light of the Logos.



The Creation is the Resurrection and vice versa. From the moment the Logos incarnated and defeated death, we have had the possibility to think according to the Resurrection, insofar as the flaming light of the Logos lights up within each thought that we think. But to perceive this light, we must overcome the darkness of reflected thought. This is why Nietzsche’s death of God does not mean atheism, but rather the end of idolatry. Read on in such a manner that the Creation is, in itself, a metaphor for the self’s awakening from that which is before the Beginning, i.e. no being, death. Was not the state of pre-being the fallen state? Are we not all born into a fallen state, from which it might be argued that most people never rise, as in rising up from death in the manner of the Resurrection.



To be born fallen and to die risen is something to contemplate upon. And the risen state, be it understood as the cosmic creation or the individual’s awakening, all turns upon the intervention of Love, what I have termed the Originatory Principle, the mystery that will have no explanation.

© John Dunn.