Preface: what I call The Awareness Principle does not only
question, as Heidegger did, the nature of Being and its relation to beings.
Instead it also and above all speaks of a primordial ‘Awareness of Being’. Its principle concern and question is therefore
the nature of Awareness itself. But this
does not mean that ‘The Awareness Principle’ simply transcends or supersedes ‘the
question of Being’ as Heidegger asked it. On the contrary, by speaking also of
an ‘Awareness of Being’, The Awareness
Principle - whatever new fruits it bears from it - is a tree that will always
remain grounded and rooted in the ‘question of Being’ – and therefore also in
the thinking of Martin Heidegger himself. The following essay is a new reminder
and expression of this truth.” Peter Wilberg 2015
We take our stand as beings
within a world of beings. ‘A being’ or ‘beings’ means here - anything and
everything that ‘is’. But what, asks Heidegger, does it mean for any being at
all to ‘be’? What is the ‘Being’ of any being? We may see a tree, rock, paving
stone or a wall of brick, a car or house, a chair or desk, and say of it that
it ‘is there’ – that ‘there is’, for example a paving stone, the brickwork of a
building or the bark of a tree. We may look further and say that there ‘is’ a
patch of lichen on it, that this lichen ‘is’ ‘yellow’ etc. But where, how or in what way do we or even CAN
we perceive the Being or ‘is-ness’ of anything which we perceive – and so also think
or say of it: ‘there is…’? Where and how, for example, on a paving stone or
wall of brick - or in the yellowness of the patch of lichen we see on it - do or
even can we perceive in this being anything like its ‘Being’ or being-ness -
its ‘is-ness’? Is this ‘is-ness’ perhaps not something so concealed or hidden,
so lacking in any perceptible qualities or faces, that we could just as much
say that precisely there, where we
say of something that it ‘is’, we find precisely nothing – an ‘is not’. If so,
then could we not just as well say of anything that ‘it is not’ and ‘there is
not…’? Could it not be that in perceiving, thinking and saying ‘there
is…’, for example ‘there ‘is’ a tree or
brick, with its bark and patch of yellow lichen’ we are at the same time saying
‘No’ to this ‘is’ - which is nothing ‘there’ to be seen or perceived at all –
nothing at all that ‘is’, and therefore, in the deepest sense also no ‘being at
all’? Such questions offer a crude summary of some of the many deep directions
in which Heidegger’s meditative questioning on the nature of ‘Being’ and of
‘beings’ led. Through them, it began to seem to him that there was a great Nothingness
at the heart of Being itself - not just because Being is no ‘thing’ but because
the Being of any being is nothing that ‘there is’, nothing that can be seen or
heard, felt or touched in any tangible way. But is this actually true? Could it
not be, however, that precisely in and through the perceptible face or look of
any being, the way it comes to light or ‘appears’ to us as a ‘phenomenon’ (a
word derived from the Greek phaos/phos
(light) and phainesthein – to ‘come
to light’ or ‘bring to appearance through light’) that its true ‘Being’ can be found?
The particular ‘look’ of a being,
the way it both appears and in this way also ‘stands out’ or ‘ex-ists’ for us, was what the Greeks called its eidos. This is a word that later became
reduced to a mere ‘idea’ of something. But it also gives us a clue to a new way
of looking at things, one through which their Being, ‘is-ness’ or ‘being-ness’
is nothing concealed at all but stares us in the face as their very ‘look’ –
not in the form of any mental concept or ‘idea’ of what they are, but as their eidos in the original sense. It does of
course remain true that as a long as we perceive in the way that most people
are so accustomed to doing - according to a preconceived idea of what it is they are perceiving – that then there is no way
that the Being or ‘is-ness’ of anything, any ‘being’, is evident to us.
As long as we only perceive
something as a ‘car’, ‘chair’,
‘desk’, ‘house’, ‘tree’ etc., then whatever its particular, distinguishing features,
we see no more than a particular instance or example of what is not more than a
general or generic idea of what it
is, and not its ‘is-ness at all. The entire realm of our sensory experiencing
and perception takes the form, not of immediate ‘sensory perceptions’, but of
what I call ‘sensory’ conceptions’ – perceiving phenomena as ‘this’ or ‘that’. Our lives do not begin in this way. An infant
for example - meaning someone who has not learned to speak (in-fans) and to name things in language
- can hear just as well as an adult. Yet, lacking any idea or concept of ‘a car’,
‘a train’ - or ‘a Mozart symphony’ - cannot possibly hear such a thing as a ‘Mozart symphony’ or even simply ‘a car’ or
‘a train’ passing by. Instead the infant ‘simply’, but in some ways more
deeply, and inwardly and tangibly than an adult – is touched by the felt tone and timbre of the sounds they hear. But what would happen if, like
infants, we were able to not or to stop perceiving things in a
pre-conceived way - ‘as’ this or that and according to a learned word for and
idea of what they are? Then for example, a paving stone with its patch of
yellow lichen would no longer be seen simply as ‘a paving stone’, the ‘lichen’ would no longer be seen as ‘lichen’. In fact, even its colour
would no longer be perceived merely as some
shade of what we have long learned to call
‘yellow. Instead, our experience of perceiving any phenomenon would be
transformed into what, in my Memoirs and other essays, I have called ‘Sensuous
Awareness Bliss’. By this I mean a concept-free and purely sensual and aesthetic experiencing
of sights, sounds, shapes, tones, textures and colours etc. Yet this is a type
of experience that most people only have
- if they are not on drugs like LSD - when, for example, they come to appreciate and enjoy a supposedly
‘abstract’ painting or sculpture, one in which they cannot identify anything in
the artwork as some nameable ‘thing’. It is also an experience that some – but
not all – people have when they listen to a piece of music. That is because music,
by its nature, offers us a direct feeling and sensual experience which is
innately free of ideas or concepts - which does not ‘represent’ anything,
and is not even reducible to any ‘emotion’ we can label in words. If it were, it would be
enough to present a description of the music and the things or ideas it
represents - and there would no need to actually listen to it and feel it at
all! In this sense, all music – and not just modern music of a sort that is
seemingly abstract or ‘atonal’ music – is essentially abstract, and is so
however deeply and intensely it touches and moves our souls. Of course there
are pieces of great classical and romantic music which also seek to ‘tell a
story’, ‘paint a picture’ or convey the atmosphere of a particular country or
landscape. Yet does this imply that the music could just as well be replaced by
a story, painting or walk in that landscape? Certainly not. The question is -
why? My answer, as the reader will come to see, is that the composer works with
and from the very same tones and colours of feeling that find expression in the
story, painting or landscape itself. These tones of feeling are nothing visible
or audible in the story, painting or landscape itself – and yet they constitute its very soul – made up of feeling tones that, if the composer is in
resonance with them, can then wordlessly ‘resound’ as audible vocal,
instrumental or orchestral tones.
In contrast, a great piece of
clearly non-abstract or ‘figurative’ painting, may, of course, seem to clearly
portray or ‘represent’, for example, ‘a tree’.
But the greatness of the
painting lies first of all in the way in which it reveals or ‘discloses’ the
unique shape, form and colouration of the tree something as a phenomenon that
is - in itself - something entirely ‘abstract’
- no more ‘concrete’ or ‘figurative’ than an ‘abstract’ work of sculpture. For
a tree itself, with all its many
unique features does not ‘re-present’
any ‘thing’ – and certainly not a mere ‘idea’ or ‘concept’ of what it is. As a
result, no matter how naturalistically painted, the painting cannot merely
‘re-present’ a tree. For how can something that does
not itself ‘represent’ anything be
represented? Both the ‘actual’ or
‘concrete’ and artistically ‘represented’ tree therefore essentially represent
‘nothing’ – ‘no-thing’.Yet perhaps we can rephrase this
understanding and say instead that a tree, whether it stands before us in
nature or in a painting, even though it ‘represents’ nothing, does indeed present something to us. It presents ‘nothing’
but what it itself is – its ‘Being’ -
but only and precisely by not representing itself to us simply
‘as’ what we call ‘a tree’.
How then does the tree present
itself? Not as a ‘figure’ representing anything but rather a unique ‘gestalt’
or configuration (‘con-figuration’) of purely sensory or ‘phenomenal’ qualities
- qualities of the sort we can but need
not represent in language as the sculptural form of its ‘branches’, the
shape, density and colour tone of its leaves or ‘foliage’, the height,
thickness and sensed weightiness of its ‘trunk’ and the particular texture,
more or less smooth or rough, of its ‘bark’ etc. Yet to use what we call ‘a
tree’ as our example here is all too easily misleading. True, we have shown
that a phenomenon of the most supposedly ‘concrete’ or ‘natural’ sort – like a
tree - is, in itself something that is as abstract
as any supposedly ‘abstract’ work of art of the sort - which also only presents us with a un-nameable ‘configuration’
of sensory shapes and qualities. But great art or music is also and above all felt
as meaningful - even if we cannot
reduce this felt meaning or ‘sense’1
to an ‘idea’ or represent it in words, even if, to use the English phrase we
cannot ‘make sense’ of it?
So what sort of felt meaning or
‘sense’1 is it that presents itself through the sensory qualities
manifested in the look, face or eidos
of any sensory phenomenon at all - whether
natural or man-made, artistically crafted or purely utilitarian, that we do not
reduce to some ‘idea’ of what it is? Is it not the same sort of pre-conceptual
and wordlessly felt meaning that we experience
in listening to music? But perhaps it is also something else – similar to the
sort of ‘felt meaning’ we experience
whenever we perceive the ‘look’ or eidos
of another human being - both the
look of their bodies and, in particular, the look in their
face and eyes. For such looks are no mere ‘object’ of our own visual perception, but
reveal to us something very different – their own way of looking out on, seeing
and feeling the world around them. This, in turn, is something tinted or toned by a particular way of feeling themselves – which
also lends the look in their face and eyes a particular ‘mood’ or tone of feeling.
The body of a human being then, including and
in particular, their face and eyes, have a ‘look’ that is not something we
simply perceive as a thing or ‘object’.Neither is all that presents
itself to us as the bodily shape, look and face of a particular human being
something simply ‘there’ or ‘present’ for us to be or become aware of. Instead, and as a ‘phenomenon’
in the root sense, it brings to light and brings forth - it presences - the unique qualities, tones,
shapes, colours and textures of that
particular human being’s awareness, in particular their wordless feeling awareness of themselves and the
world. Are not such qualities of awareness that which most of all tell us what,
who and also ‘how’ that human being ‘is’? For surely, what a particular human
being ‘is’ cannot be separated from how and who they feel themselves ‘to be’? And is not this feeling awareness of themselves something which itself tones and
tints, shapes and colours, the entire way they feel, sense and perceive other
people and the world around them – that world in which they first come to
‘stand out’ or ‘ex-ist’? It seems, then, that there is an intrinsic relation
between ‘being’ itself and feeling. Here
we find ourselves ‘at one’ with Martin Heidegger:
“Feeling is the very state, open to itself, in which we stand related
to things, to ourselves and to the people around us … Feeling is the very state, open to itself, in which human being
hovers.”
“Every feeling is an embodiment attuned in this or that way, a mood that
embodies in this or that way.”
“A mood makes manifest ‘how one is’ and ‘how one is faring’. In this
‘how one is’; having a mood brings Being (Sein) to its ‘there’ (Da).”
Heidegger also remarks:
“The bodying of life is not encapsulated in the ‘physical mass’ in
which the body can appear to us …”
But is ‘life’ and its ‘bodying’
restricted to the human being? Not at all. The light of awareness that is
visible in the look of another human being’s eyes – whether it be a darkly
inward-looking or brightly outward-shining light – can reveal countless
possible shades of both light and darkness, as well as countless possible tones
and colourations of awareness. In the light of this understanding, we can
return to the ‘yellow’ of the abstract patch of ‘lichen’ - whether on a rock or
the bark of a tree, on the paving stones
of a stree or brickwork of a man-made building. We have suggested that this
yellow patch of lichen is not something that ‘is’ - in the sense of being
simply there or present. Instead, we must concur with Heidegger in
understanding that in everything ‘there is…’ - from a human being to a machine
or motor car, from a rock, plant or animal to an armchair, table, desk – is something
that is not merely ‘present’ but ‘presences’. But what exactly presences in and
as the Being of any being or phenomenon?
That ‘something’ is, of course
‘no-thing’. Yet this does not mean it is ‘nothing’. In my books and writings
(in particular The Qualia Revolution)
I argue that in every sensory quality or feature of every experienced
phenomenon, what is constantly presencing
- coming to light or coming to presence – are innately sensual and feeling
qualities, not of ‘physical matter’, but of awareness
itself. The particular yellowness of the yellow patch of lichen lets a
particular colouration of feeling awareness shine through – come to presence
before our eyes. The lichen is alive
with the light and colouration of awareness that its ‘yellowness’ allows to
shine through and come to light – even
though the light and colouration of awareness cannot, in itself be seen – but
only felt through its visible
manifestation and embodiment in the
colour of the ‘lichen’.
Science recognises the lichen to
be ‘alive’ in some way, just as it recognises life in a tree. But the rocks,
bricks, roof tiles, paving stones or any surfaces on which the lichen may
appear are not something ‘dead’, ‘inert’ or ‘insentient’. To believe this is to
restrict not just awareness but also the meaning of ‘life’ – and with it the
entire ‘meaning of life’ - to the realm of ‘biological’ entities or beings.
This is a restriction imposed by the ideas and preconceptions of a ‘science’
which studies beings of every possible type – but, as Heidegger pointed out,
without for a single moment questioning what it means for any being to be – for
this is a type of question which ‘physical science’ - in the way it defines
itself today - can perform no possible experiments to answer. The question
itself transcends the bounds of this ‘physical science’. The question is by
nature, and as already Aristotle recognised, not a ‘physical’ but a
‘meta-physical’ question. This is a type of question which modern scientific
thinking in general not only does not even ask – but also has no possible way of answering in its own
terms and through its own methods.Science
also reduces the ‘presencing’ or ‘coming to presence’ of phenomena to mere
chains of cause and effect. It has nothing at all to say of the Being or
‘is-ness’ of those phenomena: ‘the Being of beings’.
In the language of everyday life, however, we may say of a particular individual that he or she has a strong or
powerful ‘presence’. What is meant by this? That through this individual being
something comes to presence - something ‘presences’. The distinction between
what is merely there or ‘present’ and what ‘presences’ or comes to presence
through it goes back to Heidegger – as a fundamental clue to the relation of
Being and beings. ‘Being’ is thought, not merely as what is present, but as
what presences in all beings. It is also thought by Heidegger as a clear and light-filled open
space or ‘clearing’ (Lichtung) which
first allows beings to be – to appear or come to presence. This open space and
light are thought, in the terms of The Awareness Principle, as an open space and
light of awareness. Hence what
presences in all beings – and not just a human being with a particularly ‘strong’
presence – is awareness.
The solid mahogany desk at which
I write also has a strong, weighty and powerful presence. But to be open to feeling this presence means being open
to sensing what is presencing through
its presence. The sensory qualities of the desk are clear for all to see and
therefore also to sense – for example the symmetry and curvatures of its shape,
its heavy solidity, the deep brown
colour, graining and sheen of its surface etc. But to be open to feel, sense
and resonate with what presences through these qualities – the ‘Being’ of the
desk - is another thing entirely – and no thing at all. It means feeling the ‘body’
of the desk not merely as some material body separate from my ‘own’ fleshly
body but in a similar way to how I experience that body from within – which is not as a watery conglomeration of tissue and organs but rather as a
configuration of actual and potential densities, weights, shapes, textures and
colourations of feeling awareness itself.
All of these qualities are sensual qualities
– which is why through them I can come to strongly sense and resonate with the
qualities of awareness that come to presence through the visible sensory qualities of the desk. The same
thing applies to the body of any other thing around me - no matter how small,
insignificant or lacking in presence or prominence it may be to those who enter
my room. Even if they take time to survey the room as a whole, and all that is
contained in its space - all they would probably think is ‘Oh, there is ‘a desk’,
there is ‘a sofa’, there is a ‘picture on the wall’, there is ‘a curtain’,
there is a ‘laptop’, there is ‘a bookshelf’, there is ‘a statue of Shiva’.
Whether they ‘like’ the room and
things in it or not, all there is in
their awareness of these things is some
mundane ‘there is…’. They see things that all have a clear function and use –
even if that use appears as just ‘decoration’ or ‘symbolic’ in some way. In
other words, they see nothing, because their mode of seeing is entirely and purely to see what is there ‘as’
this or that – ‘as’ a desk, curtain, laptop, chair, sofa etc. So however much
they may ‘like’ some particular thing – for example my desk or fireplace, the
matching colours of a lampshade and curtains, what they actually see is still just ‘a desk’ or ‘a fireplace’,
‘the colour’ of ‘curtains’ or of ‘a lampshade’ etc. Their senses are in this way dulled if not
blind to all that presences through
the features, shapes and qualities of things, which is also all that – in this
way - constitutes their very ‘Being’ as
beings. That is why most people (except
perhaps at rare times when they might be entranced by a river or mountain while
on holiday, or a work on display in an art gallery) live in a world which -
though ever fuller of colourful, nicely designed and useful ‘things’ - is in
fact a world of sensory deprivation and
impoverishment. So let us be perfectly clear.
It is not the ‘domination’ of
awareness by sensory awareness that is a
‘spiritual’ obstacle to ‘enlightenment’ for anyone, but the very opposite - the
dull superficiality of that sensory awareness of the world. This dulling of sensory awareness is a
‘spiritual’ one only because it closes off awareness to a deep and even
bliss-filled sensory appreciation of the very Being of the things around them, no matter how seemingly ordinary
or mundane. To be sure, there are many who can still take great pleasure or
even experience a moment of bliss in not only seeing but feeling – with and
within their whole body – the beauty of a single small flower in a garden or
meadow. If only they had the awareness to feel the same type of sensory
pleasure or even bliss from fully feeling other things too, including man-made
things that they take as so ordinary that they do not even pause to look at or
really see them at all – like a patch
of yellow lichen on a paving stone beneath their very feet. If they did ‘see’
in this way however, then all the world and everything in it would become like
an ‘art gallery’ or a vivid and life-filled ‘lucid dream’ for them – and not
merely a collection of ‘things’ pretty or ugly, mundane or extraordinary,
practical or decorative, ‘liked’, ‘not liked’ or ‘unliked’. They would also experience no need to have their senses
artificially hyperstimulated by simulated sensory images of things and
places on electronic devices such as computers, smartphones and televisions - or by addiction to the overwhelming
variety of commodities, offered in countless gaudy shapes and colours, in
supermarkets, shopping malls and other temples of consumerism.
My suggestion for such people –
all people:
·
Take time
to be more aware of anything around
you in a sensory, feeling way.
·
Take time to frequently pause for a while and stop seeing some thing, however
ordinary, merely ‘as’ this or that well-known type of ‘object’.
Instead, and in this way, begin
to use your own sensory and feeling awareness to truly meditate ‘ordinary
things’. This means seeing, sensing and resonating with those unique and
blissfully sensual qualities of inner feeling awareness that they bring to presence - in and through their outer, sensory form. How? Perhaps,
to begin with, by taking time intending to ‘see’ any seemingly ‘material’ thing
as a type of solidified music – not
just seeing but sensing, feeling or even inwardly ‘hearing’ it as an ‘inner
sound’ - one that gives perfect sensory
form to those uniquely shaped tones, colours, textures, densities and
intensities of feeling awareness that
are what it most essentially is.
Remember above all what ‘The Awareness
Principle’ teaches us - that awareness itself
can be sensed as having a rough, jagged or smooth, angular, rectilinear or
rounded nature, a vertical and horizontal nature, and as having a weight, density
and intensity, brightness or darkness, lightness or heaviness, texture and tone - all
of its own. How do we know? Because it is constantly presencing and made
manifest in the sensory features of all the most ordinary things around us.
Because it is the constant presencing or be-ing
that is the very essence of their ‘Being’.
Have we then completely solved
‘The Question of Being’ in the way in which Heidegger – and Heidegger alone,
was the first to pose it? Are there no further questions to be asked or yet to be
found? By no means. We say for example that we ‘recognise’ a person by their
‘look’ or eidos, or else by the sound
of their voice - or, in the case of the blind, by the felt shape of their face.
And yet the look in a person’s face and eyes, like the tone of their voice can
not only change over time but vary at any time – even to the point that we no
longer ‘recognise’ them at all. Perhaps to simply ‘recognise’ someone for who
they ‘are’ is by no means the same thing as fully and deeply cognising them through their (changing)
features, figure, expression and tone of voice. If so, what is it that still
somehow remains ‘the same’ amidst this changeability? Wherein lies the oneness
in ‘the many faces’ of the soul? The
same question can be asked of the many symphonies or works of a composer or
artist. Here the question of what is ‘the same’ is a clue to its own answer.
For the words ‘same’ (selbe) and
‘self’ (Selbst) are, in German at
least, cognate – sharing a common root. That is why Heidegger spoke less
of any fixed ‘self’ than of ‘the Same’ (das
Selbe). By this he did not mean the pure ‘identity’ of any thing or ‘self’
with itself, as expressed in the logical formula ‘A=A’. Instead he understood
‘identity’ as a belonging together of
the self with itself - to which we
could add also, the belonging together
of its many aspects or looks, features or faces - these being many different faces
and personifications of what we can call the ‘soul’. One need only think here
of the many and varied life forms to be found in a sea or ocean, which are but
manifold expressions of the life of the ‘self-same’ sea or ocean itself and as
a whole.
Perhaps it is no accident then,
that the German word Seele derives
from ‘sea’ (See). In which case
however, to speak of ‘soul’ in the terms of any other language would not be to
speak of ‘soul’ in this specific meaning at all. Thus the Greek and Latin words
for ‘soul’ hint of the element of air rather than water – of breath or wind (Greek
psyche/pneuma) and Latin spiritus –
from spirare, to breathe or
‘respire’. The same applies to the Sanskrit word normally translated as ‘self’ - atman. This word is echoed in the German
words for both breath (Atem) and breathing (atmen). Is there a basic ‘elemental’
difference or contradiction here to the word ‘soul’? By no means. For do not
all beings, whether of land, air or sea, breathe?
Indeed is there not even a way in which seemingly
insentient things breathe. Lichen
for example – lives on nothing but the very light and air around it. And both
land and soil too – even porous rock - can be said to breathe, absorbing and
emanating gases or vapours.
To breathe a combination of gases
such as ‘air’ is one thing. But why is it that we may feel a particularly
strong urge to take a deep breath just at times when, for example, a wonderful
vista open up before us or we see, hear or read something extraordinary. Is this not in order to help us to fully feel
and inhale – breathe in – our awareness of
an extraordinary phenomenon. Is not ‘in-spiration’, particularly of a
‘spiritual’ sort - first of all an exhilarating in-breath of awareness itself – as when we open ourselves to fully take in or
‘absorb’ the bodily presence of another being – whether in the form of a human
being, an extraordinary landscape, a great tree or mountain, or a man-made
being such as an extraordinary house, car or work of art?
But then we must also ask what
first makes the difference between something ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’?
Does this difference even lie in the thing or being itself, or does it lie in
the fact that anything can become ‘extraordinary’ if we are fully taking in or
breathing in our awareness of it – and in particular our direct sensory
awareness? Art is clearly the expression of what might be called the ‘aesthetic
inspiration’ or ‘aesthetic experiencing’ of the artist. Yet no work of art is a
work of art unless or in so far as it can also be aesthetically experienced by others. In other words, behind all art
and all modes of active aesthetic expression lies something more fundamental -
a capacity for aesthetic experiencing. But even to speak of ‘aesthetic
experiencing’ is to forget the Greek
meaning of the word ‘aesthetic’ – which means simply and purely a contemplative or meditative awareness of sensory experiencing in general. All talk of ‘aesthetics’ as “a branch
of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, beauty,
and taste” or as "critical reflection on art, culture
and nature." (Wikipedia) forgets this - and replaces
meditative or aware sensory experiencing
itself with mere ideas about it
or criteria for making judgements on
it.
Peter Wilberg Feb. 2015
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