Reality. Wynand De Beer

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СКАЧАТЬ it not to be,” and “the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be” (Fragment 2). An identical terminology is encountered in the Indian spiritual classic, the Bhagavad Gita: “What is non-Being is never known to have been, and what is Being is never known not to have been” (2:16).

The numerous and striking parallels between classical Indian and Hellenic philosophy have been explored by various authors. Hellenic thinkers mentioned in this regard include Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Plato. Concluding his informative survey of these parallels, A.N. Marlow suggests that Indian influence probably reached the Hellenic world through Iran as intermediary.20 Without denying a flow of thought in either direction, we suggest that these parallels should be ascribed primarily to a common spiritual-intellectual inheritance. For instance, the Indo-European names for the supreme Deity (of which more later) certainly indicate a common origin.

The characteristics of being, as Parmenides understands it, have been summarized as follows: (i) It is without origin or cessation, since it could only arise from or return to non-being, which does not exist other than as an abstraction; (ii) it is an indivisible whole, which is to say a homogeneous continuity; (iii) it is motionless, since motion requires empty space, but that is non-being (which does not really exist); and (iv) it is perfect, since any lack therein would imply the existence of non-being, which is impossible.21 Again, an identical ontology is presented in the Bhagavad Gita: “Know that to be imperishable whereby all this is pervaded. No one can destroy that immutable being” (2.17); “This is never born or ever dies, nor having been will ever not be any more; unborn, eternal, everlasting, ancient” (2.22); and “Perceivable neither by the senses nor by the mind, This is called unchangeable” (2.25). In summary: true being is eternal, continuous, motionless, immutable, and perfect.

      The celebrated paradoxes of Zeno were written by a student of Parmenides to support this ontology. The paradox of Achilles and the tortoise is probably the most famous of these arguments, in this case directed against the concept of motion. The Hellenic hero Achilles and a tortoise compete in a race, with the tortoise given a hundred metres head-start. If Achilles runs ten times faster than the tortoise (which would make it a fast tortoise indeed), then by the time he reaches the tortoise’s starting point the reptile would have ran ten metres. By the time Achilles reaches this hundred-and-ten metres mark from his starting point, the tortoise would have moved a further metre, and so the process continues ad infinitum. Therefore, Zeno concludes, Achilles will never overtake the tortoise.

      Not surprisingly, Zeno’s paradoxes have from the outset been opposed by a variety of thinkers, including Aristotle in his Physics. After all, everyday observation suggests that the physical world we live in is characterized very much by origin, cessation, motion, and imperfection. However, the reason for this apparent contradiction of Parmenides’ ontology is that our living world is the realm of becoming and not the world of true being. The imperfect world of becoming, in which things (both living and inanimate) come to be and cease to be and are in motion, is therefore situated somewhere between true being and non-being. We could therefore postulate the following provisional hierarchy of reality, arranged from higher to lower: Being, becoming, and non-being.

      The One beyond Being and Non-being

The differentiation between being and non-being, as encountered in both Hellenic and Indian philosophy, might at first sight suggest that the cosmos entails a duality of something and nothing. However, transcending both being and non-being there is the supreme Reality of the Godhead: “I will expound to thee that which is to be known and knowing which one enjoys immortality; it is the supreme Brahman which has no beginning, which is called neither Being nor non-Being” (Bhagavad Gita, 11.12). It actually precedes the differentiation between being and non-being: “There was then neither being nor non-being. Without breath breathed by its own power That One” (Rig Veda X.129).22 This supreme Reality is called God (in Christianity), Brahman (in Hinduism), and the One (in Neoplatonism).

As could be expected, the greatest Western philosopher of all time, Plato, pondered the question of being and non-being.23 The notion of divine transcendence was developed in his dialogue Parmenides, in which the One is described as indivisible, unlimited, and shapeless, neither at rest nor in motion, neither like nor unlike anything else, not partaking of time or being, and not an object of knowledge (137c–142a). Moreover, the One is beyond the duality of being and non-being, since it sometimes partakes of being and sometimes does not partake of being (155e). A similar stance is found in the Indian philosophical school known as Advaita Vedanta, where the concept of divine transcendence is encapsulated in the phrase neti neti, which means ‘neither this, nor that’ in Sanskrit. It negates all descriptions about the ultimate Reality, but not the Reality itself.24

In the cosmology of Plotinus, the One (to hen) is conceived as beyond all being (Enneads, V.5.6). He insists further that the One is nothing, i.e., no thing (ouden), not anything at all (Enneads, VI.9.3). Even the term ‘One’ contains only a denial of multiplicity (Enneads, V.5.6). Now, since the One is eternally beyond the manifested cosmos, Plotinus reasons, the metaphysical realm consists of Intellect (Nous, also translated as Mind) in its higher aspect and Soul (Psychē) in its lower aspect. To be more specific, the One is absolutely transcendent in respect of Intellect, Forms, and Being (Enneads, VI.8.15).25 Nonetheless, as ultimate source of all Being (through the Intellect), the One provides the foundation (archē) and location (topos) of all things that exist (Enneads, VI.9.6). In this way the One is both nothing, being indistinct and pure unity, and everything, as the principle of all things.26 Or, as stated by Krishna (an incarnation of the God Vishnu in human form): “Whatever is the seed of every being, O Arjuna, that am I; there is nothing, whether moving or fixed, that can be without Me” (Bhagavad Gita, 10.39).

The Hellenic and Indian affirmation of the transcendence of the Godhead beyond being and non-being implies that the One is essentially beyond thought and speech. We can have no opinion, thought, or knowledge of the One; it is beyond everything. This insistence on divine ineffability would be elaborated by the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus and the Christian theologian Dionysius the Areopagite, among others.27 Stating the same approach in Trinitarian terms, the German mystic Meister Eckhart writes of the Godhead that transcends the God of the three divine Persons, as “the absolutely simple One, without any mode or any property; He is not there in the sense of Father, Son or Holy Spirit, but He is nonetheless a Something which is neither this nor that”; adding that “all that is in the Deity is one, and of that Godhead there is no occasion to speak.” And regarding activity, he writes that “God acts, the Godhead acts not at all. God and Godhead differ by acting and non-acting.”28

However, if the One is beyond all being, how can it also be the ground or source of all being, as the metaphysical tradition asserts? According to this tradition, all that exists is established by the movement from the Principle into Manifestation, which is the flow of the One into the many. The foundation of all things in the supreme Reality, which is to say of the immanent in the transcendent, is affirmed in the Bhagavad Gita: “By Me [Brahman], unmanifest in form, this whole world is pervaded; all beings are in Me, I am not in them” (9.4). This world-view is sometimes called pan-en-theism, derived from the Greek pan (all), en (in) and theos (god); in other words, all things are in God, in the sense of receiving their being from the supreme Reality. This concept is not the same as pantheism, which is defined as the view that God is in everything, or that God and the universe are one.29 In contrast, the ontological gap between the One and the СКАЧАТЬ