How’s your logic?
Do you love those “logical rules” with stupid names that the new atheists often quote as if they are laws of the universe? Occam’s Razor is the key one, of course, and there are others. Most of them tie into various logical fallacies, and the people using them don’t seem to realise that debating rules aren’t scientific rules, and scientific rules aren’t universal rules etc.
The map, as always, is not the territory.
So what’s one more?
I’m sure this has been said better elsewhere, however it’s been ringing around my head for a while now and I thought I’d get it down. It might help someone, as it’s helped me. I’ve found it to be true in every setting that I can apply it to, as true as anything else I know to be true. But that’s my perspective and your mileage may vary.
Here’s the rule, which I have termed the Ladder of Divinity. I told you it has to have a stupid name.
The less inherent separation a concept has, the more truth it contains
So what does this mean? Inherent separation is a loaded term, something you’ll define more fully for yourself as you search for truth.
Inherent separation means ANYTHING that is relative to another thing. If there are two or more things, they are relative. They contain inherent separation. If it is a thing referring to another thing, it contains inherent separation. If it is a thing referring to a concept that contains more things, or attempts to define things in general, it’s full of inherent separation.
Essentially any concept or belief or theory (I use these terms loosely) can be placed on a ladder. The concepts with more inherent separation within them belong at the bottom. They are the rules and thoughts that are most used, just like the bottom step of a ladder, but contain the least truth. The useful stuff that you build your more complex ideas out of.
Further up the ladder you might put concepts with less inherent separation. These are things that help you resolve things within yourself, that knit your soul together and give you momentum towards truth. An example of these things are religious texts, parables, inspiring stories and so on. They contain and use elements with inherent separation, but do so in a way that reduces separation within your self.
Go up even further and you stray away from things like language towards things like art, music and so on. Things that might contain purposeful separation, like different frequencies for contrast in music and different colours in art. But the concepts they get across are more helpful than any word.
Up further: emotions. Actions.
The final step is the final step for everything, and that can only be termed beingness. Beingness can’t really be described in words but it is the fundamental stateless state, sometimes called the I-thought, the Witness and so on. Beingness can’t be described (words are quite low on the Ladder of Divinity) but it can be experienced. It’s the only absolute Truth we can experience. Everything lower on it is at worst a distraction, at best it is functional separation.
Why is it that anything that contains separation or relativity is less truthful, less real, than that without?
Because truth is Absolute. I’m using truth here as a shorthand for “what is real, what is actually real, etc”.
What is Absolute is real, and what is relative is not Absolute.
Consider it like a reversal of the Law of One. They contend (and I have verified) that all is One, and all things are merely perturbations of the One.
Therefore a good shorthand – a construct with functional inherent separation – is to reverse that and say the more separation a concept has, the less truth it contains and thus the less useful it will be on your search for what is real.
Hopefully this helps you on your journey to know Self.