Nietzsche and the Eternal Recurrence
When the infamous German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, published
his existential magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he presaged it, “A
Book for All and None”, because he was acutely aware that although the
books central message related to "all" who may read it, only those who
had an experiential frame of reference would be able to truly recognize it,
and therefore appreciate it conceptually. Unfortunately, for Nietzsche –
and all other such mystics for that matter – there is a despairingly small
amount of people who have experienced enlightenment; next to “none”, so
to speak, hence his presage and the difficulty all mystics face in attempting
to convey this ineffable revelation.
"Just now my world became perfect, midnight is also midday – Pain is also a
joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun – be gone! or you will learn: a
wise man is also a fool." Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
I mention this because this text is of the very same nature; without a frame
of reference to guide you, these concepts may seem difficult to understand,
but if you are able to relate them to first-hand experiences, you will have
no problem contemplating their implications and most of all, you will be
able to judge their so-called validity. Fortunately, many of us today have
had similar fleeting experiences as déjà vu and synchronicity, so it is my
hope that this text will be at least somewhat relative to the average person.
(Let it be noted that it is a profound corollary of this assessment that we
may be headed toward an archetypal event that will cause widespread
precognition and this in turn will cause a drastic revolution of mind.)
While these experiences may be somewhat common, their apotheosis –
enlightenment – is much harder to come by. In fact, it is usually an
experience limited to the practicing shaman or devoted mystic, of which
we historically have very little. Friedrich Nietzsche was a man that was
rewarded with this divine knowledge due to his unerring will to search for
meaning, and despite the vast impediments of communication that he
faced, he still attempted to convey this knowledge through his work and
not surprisingly, he was not the first. In fact, the enlightenment that he was
touting as the answer to our problems has been a source of inspiration for
minds since time immemorial. It is the archetype of wholeness; the wheel
of eternity; the unification of opposites into the eternal One; the eternal
recurrence.
"Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we
ourselves too; and that we have already existed an eternal number of times,
and all things with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a
monster of a great year; which must, like an hourglass, turn over again and
again so that it may run down and run out again; and all these years are alike in
what is greatest as in what is smallest; and we ourselves are alike in every
great year, in what is greatest as in what is smallest." Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke
Zarathustra'
The idea of the eternal recurrence is quite simple: the Universe is an eternal
process, of which we are part and parcel, and by default of this relation,
we live our same lives over and over again, just to forget everything every
time we are born/die. Enlightenment is essentially the realization of this
eternal nature of the All, which is the chief doctrine of the shaman teacher.
Everything coexists simultaneously as both necessary and perfect in every
way possible. This can only be, if, in fact, the Universe were an eternal
whole, of which nothing could be "amiss", but part of a distinct process
with a purpose of no purpose; it just is. In light of this seemingly
paradoxical and "pointless" existence, there arises a profound realization
that, if we are to live our same lives over and over again, then there is a
great responsibility to amend our unconsciousness and therefore direct our
wills toward a more "moral" existence for the purpose of wanting to
experience this life over and over again. Because, our knowledge of our
immoral behavior acts as a weight upon our consciousness and the only
way to free ourselves of this weight is to liberate it via the integration of
God's dual nature (this is our way of forgiving our own "sins"). Once we
realize our relation to God and that he is in fact, both Good and Evil, we
may then take the step toward measuring our own behavior and whether
or not we would want to repeat it for Eternity. The idea may seem amoral,
but that is only because it is inherently paradoxical; in fact, it is supposed
to be seemingly ridiculous, for that is the pretext for true religious
revelation.
"Everlastingness is the content of that vision upon which the finer religions are
built - the 'many' absorbed everlastingly in the final unity." Alfred North
Whitehead, 'Process and Reality'
This unifying thread of thought that runs throughout history was
continuously spun by divinely inspired men that perennially affirmed
through their works what is latently held to be true in our hearts, but is
temporarily forgotten due to the mass distraction that is history and
government. This existential amnesia is a preferred state for the ruling
classes of the planet for maintaining control of the mass populace, yet
mystics and rascals of all ages have combated this recurrent repugnance
by teaching the importance of boundary dissolution. The universally shared
concepts of love, liberation, enlightenment, and freedom, are all based
upon the dissolution of boundaries; the boundaries imposed by time,
selfness, government, and unconsciousness. While imprisoned by these
boundaries, we cannot comprehend wholeness (the unification of
opposites) and so the drama of history becomes a yearning for freedom
from all restriction for the purpose of achieving enlightenment. The only
way that we may attain this goal of enlightenment is by dissolving the very
boundaries that we have imposed upon ourselves, and the number one
boundary that we must dissolve is the enterprise of corruption that we call
government.
It is the very purpose of history, and therefore government, to make us
perpetually forgetful of our boundless heritage by imposing such
restrictions upon our freedoms. These restrictions drastically limit our
ability to contemplate the meaning of our existence, but they can only hold
us back for so long; in fact, it is their very role to provide the situation
necessary to incite a revolution in our way of thinking. Because, once this
tyranny reaches a sufficient level, the veil of illusion enforcing it is lifted by a
reciprocation of accrued knowledge, leaving the Emperor caught with his
proverbial pants down. Thus, it has been the sole duty of the
eschatological mystic/shaman/trickster figure to reveal government, and
ultimately history, as a corrupt façade by helping us remember what we
have forgotten. And what we too often forget due to our subjugation is our
inherent divinity; our knowledge of our eternal, boundless, nature. The
mystic/shaman “saves” us by revealing, via his works, the true nature of
reality, which in turn, resonates with our very being; awakening us to
freedom from all restriction. The mystic is able to accomplish this through
his use of archetypal imagery; the mystic finds within himself an archetypal
truth which "awakens" him to the contents of his unconscious and in so
doing, he realizes their universality, which enables him to awaken others.
We, as Westerners, are institutionalized from the time that we can speak
to the time that we come of age as adults. This institutionalization, or
"schooling", sets us up for a life entirely dependent upon government and
material possession. We are made to accrue debt and provide services for
higher classes, while religious belief is often marginalized, or worse; it is
used as yet another tool of government for further manipulative control of
our existential awareness. This dynamic is essentially slavery of the mind
and we are largely unconscious of it because we are brainwashed from
such an early age that we are never given a chance to truly think for
ourselves. And even those that do come to think for themselves are
labeled as trouble makers and dissidents to the establishment. It is for this
very reason that the role of the mystic/trickster figure is so crucial to our
awakening, because without these figures, we would be entirely
unconscious of our predicament. As a part of our psyche, the trickster
archetype beckons us toward a revaluation of what we have been made to
believe and it is my absolute belief that this archetype will reach its
consummation in the relatively near future with government tyranny at an all
time high. With this consummation, those of us whom are predisposed will
wake up to our plight and ultimately transcend (via understanding) this
psychic prison of government and history.
Essentially, like Christ and Ghandi, truly enlightened men are against all
forms of controlling government and suppression; they preach boundless
love and dissolution of the boundaries imposed by time (hence, the mystic
being an eschatological figure). This shared ideology is what Aldous
Huxley called the Perennial Philosophy; the recurring mystical insight that
permeates throughout the higher religions.
"("That art thou"); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman,
the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being is
to discover the fact for himself, to find out Who he really is." Aldous Huxley,
'The Perennial Philosophy'
With Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche attempted to convey to us that,
since our existential beliefs – and therefore morality – are dissolving due to
our alienation from our heritage (Nature), we will soon face a crisis that
will either destroy us or deliver us, depending upon how we choose to
respond to it. We may either succumb to denial and surely pine away, or
we may be delivered by looking within where we will come to find that,
instead of some external deity, we are actually the arbiters of our own fate.
In fact, it is our grave responsibility to realize this before it is too late.
With this realization we must go beyond the world of merely good and evil
to contemplate a greater whole of which these two opposites are merely
necessary reciprocals. Because if we don't, we will be left by the wayside
of the clash between what we have been made to believe and what is
actually occurring. We cannot separate good and evil; they are intrinsically
part of us and to deny one to the favor of the other is to invite tragedy
upon ourselves. The world, and therefore God, is most obviously not all
good and we must stop trying to convince ourselves otherwise. In light of
this, we must understand that the future is not, and cannot, be guaranteed
by any government or institution, hence why we are now awakening to
how irrelevant they and their false promises are in light of the worlds
deteriorating conditions. We have not been delivered to any promise land
by inevitable progress and we are most certainly nowhere closer to heaven
on Earth than we have ever been; quite to the contrary, actually.
Certainly our governments have no business in saving us and now it has
become certain that we will not be bailed out from history by a
supernatural God either. This leaves us holding the bag of our own
salvation; this is Nietzsche’s “death of God.” Our former institutions have
failed to deliver us to any sort of enlightened state, and in becoming
disenchanted with a lack of perceived meaning, we have ultimately begun
walking down the path of self-destruction (and paradoxically, self-
reflection). Our disillusionment with reality, of which Nature is the true
arbiter, is facilitating our existential crisis and Nietzsche had the foresight to
understand this as a necessary development in our spiritual evolution.
Mother Nature will reciprocate back upon us just as badly, if not infinitely
worse, than we have done to her and she will do this so as to wake us up
from our unconsciousness; however, it will ultimately depend upon our
temperamental dispositions whether or not we will wake up from this
illusory nightmare. Nietzsche was most certainly aware of this disposition,
hence why he preached the eternal recurrence; something which is relative
to anyone who devotes enough time to seek to understand it. With the
realization of the eternal recurrence of all forms, mankind must own up to
his misgivings in order to realize his reciprocal good. And so it is our
emergency as a species that we must take responsibility for what has
happened and in so doing, we may find understanding in what is to come.
This was Nietzsche’s warning and advice, hence why he dubbed Thus
Spoke Zarathustra his, “greatest gift to mankind.”
"All that is straight lies," the dwarf murmured contemptuously. "All truth is
crooked; time itself is a circle." Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
When the infamous German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, published
his existential magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he presaged it, “A
Book for All and None”, because he was acutely aware that although the
books central message related to "all" who may read it, only those who
had an experiential frame of reference would be able to truly recognize it,
and therefore appreciate it conceptually. Unfortunately, for Nietzsche –
and all other such mystics for that matter – there is a despairingly small
amount of people who have experienced enlightenment; next to “none”, so
to speak, hence his presage and the difficulty all mystics face in attempting
to convey this ineffable revelation.
"Just now my world became perfect, midnight is also midday – Pain is also a
joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun – be gone! or you will learn: a
wise man is also a fool." Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
I mention this because this text is of the very same nature; without a frame
of reference to guide you, these concepts may seem difficult to understand,
but if you are able to relate them to first-hand experiences, you will have
no problem contemplating their implications and most of all, you will be
able to judge their so-called validity. Fortunately, many of us today have
had similar fleeting experiences as déjà vu and synchronicity, so it is my
hope that this text will be at least somewhat relative to the average person.
(Let it be noted that it is a profound corollary of this assessment that we
may be headed toward an archetypal event that will cause widespread
precognition and this in turn will cause a drastic revolution of mind.)
While these experiences may be somewhat common, their apotheosis –
enlightenment – is much harder to come by. In fact, it is usually an
experience limited to the practicing shaman or devoted mystic, of which
we historically have very little. Friedrich Nietzsche was a man that was
rewarded with this divine knowledge due to his unerring will to search for
meaning, and despite the vast impediments of communication that he
faced, he still attempted to convey this knowledge through his work and
not surprisingly, he was not the first. In fact, the enlightenment that he was
touting as the answer to our problems has been a source of inspiration for
minds since time immemorial. It is the archetype of wholeness; the wheel
of eternity; the unification of opposites into the eternal One; the eternal
recurrence.
"Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we
ourselves too; and that we have already existed an eternal number of times,
and all things with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a
monster of a great year; which must, like an hourglass, turn over again and
again so that it may run down and run out again; and all these years are alike in
what is greatest as in what is smallest; and we ourselves are alike in every
great year, in what is greatest as in what is smallest." Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke
Zarathustra'
The idea of the eternal recurrence is quite simple: the Universe is an eternal
process, of which we are part and parcel, and by default of this relation,
we live our same lives over and over again, just to forget everything every
time we are born/die. Enlightenment is essentially the realization of this
eternal nature of the All, which is the chief doctrine of the shaman teacher.
Everything coexists simultaneously as both necessary and perfect in every
way possible. This can only be, if, in fact, the Universe were an eternal
whole, of which nothing could be "amiss", but part of a distinct process
with a purpose of no purpose; it just is. In light of this seemingly
paradoxical and "pointless" existence, there arises a profound realization
that, if we are to live our same lives over and over again, then there is a
great responsibility to amend our unconsciousness and therefore direct our
wills toward a more "moral" existence for the purpose of wanting to
experience this life over and over again. Because, our knowledge of our
immoral behavior acts as a weight upon our consciousness and the only
way to free ourselves of this weight is to liberate it via the integration of
God's dual nature (this is our way of forgiving our own "sins"). Once we
realize our relation to God and that he is in fact, both Good and Evil, we
may then take the step toward measuring our own behavior and whether
or not we would want to repeat it for Eternity. The idea may seem amoral,
but that is only because it is inherently paradoxical; in fact, it is supposed
to be seemingly ridiculous, for that is the pretext for true religious
revelation.
"Everlastingness is the content of that vision upon which the finer religions are
built - the 'many' absorbed everlastingly in the final unity." Alfred North
Whitehead, 'Process and Reality'
This unifying thread of thought that runs throughout history was
continuously spun by divinely inspired men that perennially affirmed
through their works what is latently held to be true in our hearts, but is
temporarily forgotten due to the mass distraction that is history and
government. This existential amnesia is a preferred state for the ruling
classes of the planet for maintaining control of the mass populace, yet
mystics and rascals of all ages have combated this recurrent repugnance
by teaching the importance of boundary dissolution. The universally shared
concepts of love, liberation, enlightenment, and freedom, are all based
upon the dissolution of boundaries; the boundaries imposed by time,
selfness, government, and unconsciousness. While imprisoned by these
boundaries, we cannot comprehend wholeness (the unification of
opposites) and so the drama of history becomes a yearning for freedom
from all restriction for the purpose of achieving enlightenment. The only
way that we may attain this goal of enlightenment is by dissolving the very
boundaries that we have imposed upon ourselves, and the number one
boundary that we must dissolve is the enterprise of corruption that we call
government.
It is the very purpose of history, and therefore government, to make us
perpetually forgetful of our boundless heritage by imposing such
restrictions upon our freedoms. These restrictions drastically limit our
ability to contemplate the meaning of our existence, but they can only hold
us back for so long; in fact, it is their very role to provide the situation
necessary to incite a revolution in our way of thinking. Because, once this
tyranny reaches a sufficient level, the veil of illusion enforcing it is lifted by a
reciprocation of accrued knowledge, leaving the Emperor caught with his
proverbial pants down. Thus, it has been the sole duty of the
eschatological mystic/shaman/trickster figure to reveal government, and
ultimately history, as a corrupt façade by helping us remember what we
have forgotten. And what we too often forget due to our subjugation is our
inherent divinity; our knowledge of our eternal, boundless, nature. The
mystic/shaman “saves” us by revealing, via his works, the true nature of
reality, which in turn, resonates with our very being; awakening us to
freedom from all restriction. The mystic is able to accomplish this through
his use of archetypal imagery; the mystic finds within himself an archetypal
truth which "awakens" him to the contents of his unconscious and in so
doing, he realizes their universality, which enables him to awaken others.
We, as Westerners, are institutionalized from the time that we can speak
to the time that we come of age as adults. This institutionalization, or
"schooling", sets us up for a life entirely dependent upon government and
material possession. We are made to accrue debt and provide services for
higher classes, while religious belief is often marginalized, or worse; it is
used as yet another tool of government for further manipulative control of
our existential awareness. This dynamic is essentially slavery of the mind
and we are largely unconscious of it because we are brainwashed from
such an early age that we are never given a chance to truly think for
ourselves. And even those that do come to think for themselves are
labeled as trouble makers and dissidents to the establishment. It is for this
very reason that the role of the mystic/trickster figure is so crucial to our
awakening, because without these figures, we would be entirely
unconscious of our predicament. As a part of our psyche, the trickster
archetype beckons us toward a revaluation of what we have been made to
believe and it is my absolute belief that this archetype will reach its
consummation in the relatively near future with government tyranny at an all
time high. With this consummation, those of us whom are predisposed will
wake up to our plight and ultimately transcend (via understanding) this
psychic prison of government and history.
Essentially, like Christ and Ghandi, truly enlightened men are against all
forms of controlling government and suppression; they preach boundless
love and dissolution of the boundaries imposed by time (hence, the mystic
being an eschatological figure). This shared ideology is what Aldous
Huxley called the Perennial Philosophy; the recurring mystical insight that
permeates throughout the higher religions.
"("That art thou"); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman,
the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being is
to discover the fact for himself, to find out Who he really is." Aldous Huxley,
'The Perennial Philosophy'
With Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche attempted to convey to us that,
since our existential beliefs – and therefore morality – are dissolving due to
our alienation from our heritage (Nature), we will soon face a crisis that
will either destroy us or deliver us, depending upon how we choose to
respond to it. We may either succumb to denial and surely pine away, or
we may be delivered by looking within where we will come to find that,
instead of some external deity, we are actually the arbiters of our own fate.
In fact, it is our grave responsibility to realize this before it is too late.
With this realization we must go beyond the world of merely good and evil
to contemplate a greater whole of which these two opposites are merely
necessary reciprocals. Because if we don't, we will be left by the wayside
of the clash between what we have been made to believe and what is
actually occurring. We cannot separate good and evil; they are intrinsically
part of us and to deny one to the favor of the other is to invite tragedy
upon ourselves. The world, and therefore God, is most obviously not all
good and we must stop trying to convince ourselves otherwise. In light of
this, we must understand that the future is not, and cannot, be guaranteed
by any government or institution, hence why we are now awakening to
how irrelevant they and their false promises are in light of the worlds
deteriorating conditions. We have not been delivered to any promise land
by inevitable progress and we are most certainly nowhere closer to heaven
on Earth than we have ever been; quite to the contrary, actually.
Certainly our governments have no business in saving us and now it has
become certain that we will not be bailed out from history by a
supernatural God either. This leaves us holding the bag of our own
salvation; this is Nietzsche’s “death of God.” Our former institutions have
failed to deliver us to any sort of enlightened state, and in becoming
disenchanted with a lack of perceived meaning, we have ultimately begun
walking down the path of self-destruction (and paradoxically, self-
reflection). Our disillusionment with reality, of which Nature is the true
arbiter, is facilitating our existential crisis and Nietzsche had the foresight to
understand this as a necessary development in our spiritual evolution.
Mother Nature will reciprocate back upon us just as badly, if not infinitely
worse, than we have done to her and she will do this so as to wake us up
from our unconsciousness; however, it will ultimately depend upon our
temperamental dispositions whether or not we will wake up from this
illusory nightmare. Nietzsche was most certainly aware of this disposition,
hence why he preached the eternal recurrence; something which is relative
to anyone who devotes enough time to seek to understand it. With the
realization of the eternal recurrence of all forms, mankind must own up to
his misgivings in order to realize his reciprocal good. And so it is our
emergency as a species that we must take responsibility for what has
happened and in so doing, we may find understanding in what is to come.
This was Nietzsche’s warning and advice, hence why he dubbed Thus
Spoke Zarathustra his, “greatest gift to mankind.”
"All that is straight lies," the dwarf murmured contemptuously. "All truth is
crooked; time itself is a circle." Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'