Познание, мораль и политика = Cognition, morality and policy. Учебное пособие

Upanishads, the Dhammapada and Bhagavad-Gita, the Bible, the Koran, the dialogues of Plato the maxims of other early Greek philosophers, Aeschylean tragedies and Shakespeare’s creativity – all these are works from spiritual traditions born of unique national cultures, but, at the same time, they are also the property of all mankind as a whole, and of each of its members. There is no the best or the worst; we cannot apply any scale of values to them at all, for they are invaluable. There is no culture, religion or philosophy, qua deep spiritual tradition, that is either the best or the worst. All of them are original and unique. However, what is universal is not a set of ideas. Rather, it is the nucleus of each culture’s ideas. The unique spiritual archetype of mankind shines through each of its national cultures in different ways. It is reflected entirely and completely in each of them, but in a special way. The more cultures there are, the richer is the spectrum of the spiritual content of the archetype. The real unity of mankind is not in slogans and ideologies; as the writer Chinghiz Aitmatov noted, this unity is found in the creation of common spiritual values.

When analyzing the history of cultures, it may seem that, although there have always been spiritual crises of different sorts, which have forced humans to develop spiritually, the present situation of the world is particularly frightening, for not all of mankind is at risk of destruction, not merely one group or another. The present worldwide spiritual crisis is menacing in both its depth and its breadth. The principle problems concern war, ecology and morality, which are closely connected to each other. Humankind is losing aspects of its spiritual archetype; people are losing their humanity. Consequently, it is now very necessary to present immemorial values more powerfully than before. These values form an integral part of all spiritual – cultural traditions of the peoples of the world. There is one spiritual archetype of humankind, but it is formulated in different languages, cultures, symbols, concepts and methods.

The proper consideration of any spiritual problem requires the study of the genesis of the concept of the spiritual, which is

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also the genesis of the human spirit. Philosophical categories are living pictures of this spiritual self-creation of the person in history. Especially it concerns the central philosophical category – being or essence. This category should be considered not simply as an abstraction of reality as a whole, but also as a symbol of essence of the individual person. In the history of philosophy, the category of being undergoes the same metamorphoses as the concept of essence of the person: from reality as the whole to being as transcendent, from soul to spirit. Both philosophical concepts and religious symbols speak their own languages about the spiritual essence of the person, use their own material to reveal the position of the person in the world comprehend the person and form an ideal: the identity of thought and being in philosophy, or the person and God in religion.

The symbol of the spiritual, in this aspect, is, in the philosophy of Fichte (1762–1814), the pure consciousness as absolute I, but it is also known, in Buddhism, as nirvana. The pure consciousness is an unknowable ideal, one with which Eastern traditions have been particularly concerned. The spiritual way is here seen as the non-identity of consciousness and any of its possible combinations, which tries to grasp the whole field of consciousness. Alienated from the not-I, the person constantly opens new levels of himself, finding itself as something other. This spiritual cognition leads to the liberation of the consciousness from any of its present experience – the private world of the person – from the tyranny of inclinations, emotions, chaotic ideas etc. In Christianity, this process is carried out by means of prayer or by reference to the transcendent. In Eastern spiritual traditions, transcendence is accomplished by means of meditation, purifying I from not-I. It is a «mind-hearted» ecstasy, the achievement of the greatest possible perfection, the full expansion of his essence, the finding of the true significance of life and realization of all potentialities. It is the spiritual ideal in which all contradictions are removed: thought and being, alienation of oneself from one’s own essence, the accomplishment of one’s unification with God. All of these

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concepts can be reduced to one, spiritual contemplation, which is found in the traditions of all human cultures.

Until now, the concept of the spiritual has been considered historically, or even formally, from the point of view of the functioning of consciousness. But such approaches give only external representations about spiritual knowledge; we miss the essence of the problem, because the spiritual is present only when there is a spiritual person. When there is no person, there is nothing spiritual. Spirituality can be coded in the ciphers of cultures, their texts, but to decode it, to make it effective and alive, it is necessary that there also be a person. Spiritual self-knowledge is possible only when the person is truly grasped; transcendence in existential fullness occurs when a person’s senses are completely unpacked. The concept of existence will be analyzed more closely below.

True morality is found not in fanaticism, but in spiritual knowledge, which has both a historical and an existential being. Therefore, in the final section of this work, I will discuss such qualitative characteristics of Spiritual Cognition in Different Cultures 193 spiritual phenomena as love, conscience and creativity. Focusing on these three phenomena in particular may at first seem unjustifiable, but it will be seen that there is reason to do so.

Let us first consider love. Although love is so often spoken of, it is never fully understood, and never will be. The only guide to love is love itself, and love can be found only in the heart of a loving person. The one who is in love sees the essence of his beloved. According to Ibn Sīnā, love is an astrolabe of the truth. Philosophy is the love of wisdom and truth, and religion is the love of God. Through love, a person is incorporated to Being, and so to God, to his neighbor and so to his own essence. To love is to increase one’s life; it is the same pure spiritual phenomenon as is contemplation. It is Love that binds together Truth, Virtue and Beauty, showing in this supreme synthesis the spiritual archetype of humankind. Without love, according to the Apostle Paul, all is vain. Love has become a banner of all spiritual traditions of man-

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kind for good cause. The lover cognizes not only another person, but also the essence of World, of Being, of God.

Now let us consider conscience. It is conscience which causes the material and the spiritual to interact. Each person acts in the material world using the laws of the ideal world. One’s conscience connects one’s acts to one’s ideals. One’s conscience is informed by one’s mind and one’s heart, by one’s belief and one’s reason. Believers refer to the conscience as the divine voice within a person. Martin Heidegger defined conscience as comessage of Being and the person, where the person plays the role of a herald of Being in order to live in accord with it. Conscience, like love, connects people. Both love and conscience demand a constant development, enlightenment and spiritual purification or perfection. Such spiritual knowledge results in a more profound understanding of moral problems. Only such a person may experience the torments of conscience and be sincerely repentant and contrite. Life in conformity with conscience, though it is difficult, gives rise to a spiritual feeling, a moral satisfaction which in its strength, profundity and height surpasses any satisfaction that could ever be provided by material or sensual pleasures. In conscience one finds both freedom and necessity. The conscience calls one not to exterior cleanliness, but to ‘interior cleanliness’, correcting the motives and intentions of one’s acts. In the purity of thought of a person is uncovered the real, spiritual significance of his life.

Finally, there is creativity. Apart from creativity, there is no spirituality. Only on account of creativity do philosophy, religion, love and conscience find spiritual significance and development. The supreme kind of creativity is self-knowledge; only the process of acquiring self-knowledge, of, as it were, creating oneself, can be defined as actually spiritual, as really creative. Aesthetic creativity is not external in relation to spirituality and essence of a person; it is their constitutive force. Creativity is not something auxiliary to metaphysics and ethics. Rather, it penetrates them, filling them up with life. Logic and the pursuit of knowledge require that metaphysics and ethics be considered separately, but in

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true spiritual creativity, they are contained in unity, as in the work of the ancient thinkers. The beauty is as important for humanity’s spiritual archetype as is truth and virtue: harmony is created only with their unity in love. It is on this account that the great Russian writer and thinker Fyodor Dostoevsky, repeating an idea of Plato’s, asserted that beauty will rescue the world.

Thus, the present research represents a consideration of spiritual problems, the stage-by-stage expansion of the concepts of spiritual, selfknowledge, creativity, spiritual archetype of humankind, and essence of the human being. These concepts form the theoretical base of this essay and allow us to consider spirituality in its purest sense, without relying on religious symbols or concepts derived from any particular system of philosophy, represented as something original and unique. This principle can also be applied more broadly to the history of philosophy and culture, both of which have grown and developed without fully comprehending their concepts and symbols. Philosophy itself is beset by the many problems that present themselves to the human mind simply in the course of going through life on earth. The nature of man has become a subject of philosophy, religion and art almost from the moment of their respective origins, and we know no more about it now than our ancestors did three millennia ago. At the same time, a great deal of knowledge is found in the field of the theory and practice which philosophical judgment is able to present to a person as a spiritual essence, to tell him something new about himself, to disclose his essence even more deeply once he has more clearly seen what he is not, and to bring him nearer to the substantial and immanent unity of all human beings, – spiritual archetype of humankind. This archetype has not been well understood, even though it has been a subject of constant study for an exceedingly long period of time and by means of various religious symbols and philosophical ideas. Thus, Christ for the faithful Christian is such divine person who, having developed the essence as a human being, has presented himself as all humankind in its complete supreme and a perfective aspect,

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and for this reason (though not only) he is God. Thus, for the faithful Christian, Christ is known to be God in part because he— a Divine person who became incarnate as a man—presented himself as the perfect man.

I now wish to analyse the basic characteristics of spirituality. In an important respect, spirituality is like philosophy. Nobody can ever fully explain what philosophy is and what it concerns, because both are in constant flux. The fullest explanation of what philosophy is is simply its ever-lengthening history. The same is true of spirituality. Nonetheless, let us try to analyse and understand spirituality. Obviously, spirituality is important, for it is concerned with the very significance of the person. The question of one’s own significance is important to every person, without exception, but not everyone thinks of it. Only when someone tries to ask this question can he begin to understand spiritual matters. The entire history of human spirituality has been oriented toward answering this question. Unfortunately, some insufficiently spiritual people believe that the meaning of life consists in sensual pleasure and the satisfaction of materialistic desires. When such a person becomes wiser, he begins to focus less on material needs and more on spiritual ones, moving toward creativity, seeking the good of others, even all mankind.

A person’s answer to the question of life’s significance forms the nucleus of his worldview and determines his entire life. The presence of consciousness as itself assumes the necessity of sense, i.е., judgments about itself. Sense is inherent in consciousness. It is possible to say that consciousness is constructed by sense, and varies depending on what the person sees as the purpose of his life. Philosophy aspires to solve the problem of sense; religion gives its own answer to it. Without depending on whether a person searches (or does not search) for the purpose of life, for the logical sense of his existence, he already lives according to this or that «sense» that has been formed within him under influence of a certain social situation and according to the level of his development as a person.

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The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (~500–428 BC) believed that the purpose of life is contemplation and the freedom that results from it. To the question of why humans exist, he replied: «For the sake of contemplation of the sky and the order of the universe»1. In the contemplation of the eternal heavens, Anaxagoras found the meaning of life.

The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy concluded that «the purpose of human life is to promote a comprehensive development of all that exists»2. He was then 19 years old, but he adhered to this position for the rest of his life. Dostoevsky believed that no person or nation can exist without a supreme idea: the meaning of life is given by the supreme idea, unto which the person aspires and in which he trusts.

Asking about the meaning of life is not merely an idle occupation. The person who avoids this question can never properly realise his own being. The question of the meaning of the life is the basic existential question. It clears up for the person the essence of his existence – being. The person who considers the question of the meaning of life begins to sweep aside all that is contrary to it. He ascends from the consideration of things to being itself, finding the principle in the light of which all other things make sense. The person, who cannot be satisfied by the things of this world, seeks for the spiritual; he is on his way to it for he has heard its call.

To be fully moral, a person must not only abstain from evil, but also become virtuous. When a person develops spiritually, his life and its meaning move from the domain of the material to that of the spiritual. This move is inevitably connected with the love of his fellow man, beginning with the people around him. Hatred blocks this development. A life of hatred is deprived of true meaning, and is consequently unsatisfying, but kindness brings

1 Abstracts of Early Greek Philosophers. Part. 1. Moscow, 1989, pp. 505,

513.

2 Tolstoy L.N. Complete Collection of Fictional Works, Vol. XXI, p. 13. 18

about great happiness in one’s soul, filling one’s life with the deepest significance.

The sense of life logically can be visualized from three points of view:

а) Beyond the boundaries of biological life (religious, metaphysical) – above life (transcendent);

b)Created directly by a material subject (immanent in respect to it, and thereby atheistic and existential);

c)As originally inherent in life in its fundamental essence – in life itself (pantheistic).

It is not possible to choose between all of these views. All of them are true from different perspectives. The meaning of life is simultaneously within life itself and beyond its boundaries; it is at the same time immanent and transcendent. It is created by a man, but it is also intrinsic to him.

When a spiritual person is extremely honest with himself, he is capable to touch depths of his own life, to meet himself, sometimes for the first time. This self-recognition brings about a spiritual transformation of the person. The beginning of spiritual knowledge comes about when a person considers the depths of himself with perfect and unassailable honesty.

In the act of self-knowledge, a person is given to himself, but in a paradoxical way; his is a special essence, and he is in the dark concerning his own nature. Thus the ancient comment to “know thyself”, which first arose as an inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Thales repeated it, and Socrates found in it the meaning of life. Religion also utters this command. In its own way, it becomes the basic theme of art, especially in Aeschylus’s tragedies in Ancient Greece, in India’s Bhagavad-Gita, and even in The Epic of Gilgamesh in ancient Mesopotamia.

Philosophy has always sought self-knowledge. Even the first naturalistic philosophers studied the universe in order to learn about themselves. Heraclitus, who predated Socrates, was habitually engaged in self-study, sitting on the steps of a temple, playing dice with children and reflecting about eternity. According to

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Plutarch, «…as if having made something majestic and important, [Heraclitus] says: “I searched for myself”» – and one of the most divine Delphic sayings was «Know thyself», For Socrates, this served as a starting point for raising this question and for his philosophical activity1.

Socrates focuses more on direct self-knowledge, he is not interested any more in other ways: «I have no interest in the nature of material reality», he wrote2. According to Socrates, it is possible to say that spiritual knowledge is the «art which helps us to care for ourselves»3 For him, the acquisition of spiritual knowledge is directed to the nature of the self, which later Plato has defined as the idea, eidos, of a person.6 The identification of eidos with the essence of the spiritual has resulted, then, in its being understood as something metaphysical and super sensual. To avoid this in the present work, spiritual knowledge is defined as the disclosing of essence of a person.

In ancient Indian philosophy, the spiritual end of man was referred to as moksha, i.e. «deliverance», and moksha-dharma, the law of Spiritual Cognition in Different Cultures deliverance, which is also the name of one of the books of the Mahabharata. The book Moksha-dharma, alongside the Upanishads, presents the basic conceptual system and principles, i.e. archetype, of ancient Indian culture. In Indian philosophy, spiritual knowledge and the essence of a person are defined through a transcendental-immanent understanding of Brahman-Atman. The same thing occurs in the Taoist book «Guanzi» (literally «[Writings of] Master Guan»), which states: «to search for wisdom outside of itself – is the height of nonsense», and the ancient Confucian philosopher Mencius said: «doctrine has only one purpose – to search for the lost human nature»4.

1Plato. Works, in 3 volumes. Moscow, 1970. Vol. 1, p. 70.

2Ibid., p. 49.

3Plato. Works, in 4 volumes, Vol. 1. Moscow, 1990, pp. 256, 733.

4Anthology of World Philosophy, in 4 volumes. Vol. 1. Part 2. Moscow, 1969, p. 210.

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The fundamental metaphysical categories of philosophy and the basic religious symbols can be considered as tools for conceiving the essence of a person. The category of being is also a symbol of the essence of a person, because each person is called to transcend his existence, finding himself, thus, in a gleam of being (Heidegger). A person is in a way external to himself, which makes it necessary for him to learn about the whole universe, in breadth to the heavens, and in the depths of his own psyche, the logos of which is infinite in its self-increasing (Heraclitus). For this reason, the person needs transcendence and immanence, being and the material world, and such concepts as atom (Democritus), idea (Plato), «the unmoved mover» (Aristotle), the supreme unity (Neoplatonists), The One (Vedanta, Vladimir Solovyev), etc. These are all symbols of the essence of the person, points that give a foothold for thought and selfcreation. In acquiring spiritual knowledge, a person finds the way to his own essence.

A person can be a slave not only to his own views, but also to the ideas which are imposed on him by culture or ideology. Therefore, research on the forms of the spiritual and the analysis of this concept can help to free one’s consciousness from illusions. The philosophical analysis of the spiritual is a way to freedom, as well as a process of self-purification and selfdeliverance. In this sense, philosophy, is an esoteric science, accessible to, but not comprehended by, everybody. The spiritual penetrates all spheres of human activity. Without the spiritual, a person does not exist, but there can be various levels of spiritualization. In this connection, we shall consider how spiritual phenomena are reflected in culture, mysticism, and morals.

The experience of spiritual self-cognition that is essential to the person creates a culture. It is the form-building core of the person. Think of the confessions of St. Augustine, Rousseau, and Lev Tolstoy. These texts not only reflect a revolution in culture, but in many respects have served as a catalyst for revolution. In the history of human culture, spiritual experience and knowledge

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