According to legend, having achieved Satori means that you are able to see the realm of existence as an infinite weave of jewels which illuminate and mirror each other. Each jewel, prescious as it is, is an aspect of existence, both distinct and unique as well as well as embedded in the whole, serving as a reflection of the whole. The whole, therefore, is an interrelated system of mirrors which reflect the highest light; and each movement within the structure alters the whole structure, so that in every moment a new world is born. Satori means you are able to see the world as being in constant motion, objects are moving, mirroring and relating to each other so that the subject-object dichotomy is transgressed into an all-seeing, yet unlocated, eye (respectively an all-seing eye which is located everywhere). The intellect is transgressed into pure perception and pacified: the whole universe bond together by sympathy and governed by mutual friendliness, there is no need for you being (as usual, once unenlightened) agitated. And do you remember Richard M. Bucke´s book about Cosmic Consciousness, originally published in 1901? Probably not, since it is not very well known. Bucke, a psychiatrist, achieved enlightenment and suggested that his „cosmic counsciousness“ is a state of mind prominent in all enlightened individuals across history, yet only expressed in somehow different state-dependent language (the language of their specific time and culture) i.e. that all revelations of enlightened consciousness in art, philosophy, spirituality, religion, relate to the same basic experience – in which the enlightened individual experiences herself as a living, spiritual part of an entirely living, spiritual cosmos in which the individual, itself, is an illusion and mortality is an illusion. Everything is governed by the supreme, perceptive intellect who is familiar with the whole and with every aspect of the whole, and the enlightened individual is the bearer of that intellect. Bucke surmised that, apart from usual suspects like Gotama Buddha, Jesus Christ, Laoze or Plato also fellows like Shakespeare, Pascal, Balzac or Walt Whitman were among those who have achieved cosmic consciousness. Mediatate about that!
In the Book of Strange and Unproductive Thinking I have ruminated whether Satori is the common state of mind of the genius. At least there are some resemblances. The genius, at least, has the second sight! With the second sight the genius is able to see through things, to see their true essence, and even beyond that: It is not raw intelligence (in its many facettes) but introspection and the capacity for deep intellectual penetration which makes the genius. The root ability for that is a quality Cooijmans calls associative horizon: that is the ability to see many associations to a given concept, to see (seemingly paradoxical or counterintuitive) associations between remote concepts and the ability to switch from motif to background. Associative horizon is a quality in its own right, relatively independent from g-related intelligence (expressed in IQ). At a basic level associative horizon manifests in (off-the-wall) humour and/or some kind of „deeper“ perception. I see people who have the second sight on Facebook, they´re posting paradoxical memes respectively images which are ambigous and connotative, not definitely to catch intellectually but eternally open, referring again to an innocence of perception yet in a dialectical way. People who have such a perception are very rare. High IQ intellectuals on Facebook are also very rare. That these qualities merge in one person is the rarest. Associative horizon is the basis basis for creative intelligence. IQ-related intelligence enables the bearer of associative horizon to operate at a high level of intelligence and to have a broad intellectual circuit in which his associative horizon can operate and make novel, original and meaningful combinations (as somehow distinguished from conclusions which you derive from g-related intelligence). With intelligence you see many things and the way they function, with associative horizon you see the Matrix. You´re intuitive. If associative horizon and intelligence amplify each other and both get amplified by conscientousness, i.e. intellectual discipline, the possibility of the productive genius arises, and when conscientousness also carries ethical conscientousness the possibility of completeness comes up (see Paul Cooijmans of genius on his website). – So the genius lives in a state of interconnectedness plus the ability to see through and beyond the connections and establish new ones which last forever. He is glued to everything because he is sympathetic. He (intellectually) mimics everything because he is empathic. Before his inner eye he sees into the universe. He gets sucked into the universe, sometimes feel painfully sticked to the universe, like hanging in outer space, being enchained to outer space and hardly able to move (which is one of the more unpleasant experiences, referring, in ordinary language, to inability to live an ordinary life). At one time he feels sucked into space, at one other struck down by the intensity of his perceptions, which constantly form impressions in correspondance with an intense (sometimes painfully intense) inner life.
Otto Weininger has noticed that the genius always stands under impressions. In here, the genius is both perceptive and reflective, mature and innocent, intellectual and anti-intellectual, both open and longing for closure and, then, openness again. In doing so and being that way, he creates his world constantly anew and each act is of significance; and of deviance: High intelligence means that one is able to come to sophisticated and comprehensive conclusions, to make abstractions and generalisations. Yet, as Lichtenberg notices, the higher the genius, the more one is able and prone to see only the individual, respectively individual aspects. This might confuse the genius, at least at a young age, make him think he has not a razor-sharp wit as others, a more nebulous and diffuse way of thinking and of perception, therefore to operate at a lower level of consciousness while in reality he is operating at a higher level of consciousness (since of course the genius is able to see the abstractions as well, and very well; what seems to be an unfocused view is an actually more focused one). A bit resemblant to that Pessoa has noticed: the higher the consciousness, the lower the consciousness; which only means that the genius does not relate to ordinary things the way ordinary man does because they are not as closely located to him – in reality the genius is closer also to ordinary things and, if it gets serious, is likely to handle them in a more competent way than ordinary man – I only say that to encourage the genius because due to his highly critical way of thinking the genius is prone to underestimate himself, sees himself to critical, is afraid of inadequancy, and usually gets depressed when he senses inadequancy within himself (yet is also the one who is able to transform his feelings of inadequancy and inferiority into something truly productive, whereas ordinary guy does not sense much inadequancy about himself, with, however, the unarticulated inferiority complex lurking in the back of his mind (and becoming acute when the genius enters)). Because of his ability to see only individuals the genius is able to „think outside the box“, transgress categories and finally establish new ones. Therefore the usual internal state of the genius is some seemingly unproductive brooding which might come along with, again, feelings of inadequancy, lack of identity and unhappiness. With time he will unlearn those connotations, yet remember them, that is to say, the will remain but become less frightening. Finally, when the genius in all aspects only sees individuals (and is able to categorise them), his mind has become the mind of God (as also Lichtenberg has noticed). That is the imperative. – Genius is an eminently rational man and longs to establish rational concepts with a determinedness no one else carries. Yet in contrast to the purely rational man the genius has an access to the seemingly irrational, respectively the a-rational. Usually being synaesthetic, the genius often strives to develop eminently rational concepts in tandem with a-rational or synaesthetic visions or along unusual questions (e.g. questioning what would happen if he moves along a light ray, a question which would not make immediate sense to the purely rational physicist); he throws, for instance, some thought into a vision of black with red dots and the red dots with white dots in them, sees how it amalgamates, transforms or contrasts, then lets it reflect in mirror 127 in his internal system to see what´s happening, etc. Therefore, darkness and light aspects before his inner eye, or in his mind, shimmer through each other, or, for instance: there is some bright oval light in the center of the vision and then the vision falls down, becomes seam-like, fuzzy, falls into the abyss, becomes irrecognizable; but that is when another circle – of perception and of reflection – begins… That is to say, genius is neither purely rational or irrational, he operates at the meta level of rationality. – Genius is immortal and not afraid of death because genius is largely spirit, not person or individual, and his spirit will last forever as well as it has always been. Since he has seen through life in his only life, life extension or reincarnation is not necessary for the genius. #nirvana
In the Book of Strange and Unproductive Thinking I have also ruminated about the hyper-genius, the transcendent genius, and the Omega Man. These venn quite similar with each other. A hyper-genius is more comprehensive than a genius, or operates at a higher level, at least in his specific domain (at 5 sigma level compared to 4 sigma level of the genius; Einstein was, as a physicist, a hyper-genius, although in other respects, and as a person, a genius; Wittgenstein, as the other emblematic genius of the last century, was a hyper-genius in general, respectively not only as a philosopher but also as a person). A transcendent genius has the most radical thoughts and is transcendent in his personality, a both extremely eccentric as well as extremely in the center of humanity located man (Goethe was a hyper-genius, yet not necessarily a transcendent genius, he was a homo universalis (although he did not understand lowlife very well and was not very very concerned or sympathetic about it) but not transcendent man, yet of course operated close to that level; Büchner, an intellect probably superior to that of Goethe (one cannot definitely tell since he died at age 23), understood lowlife, was deeply sympathetic, a fearless revolutionary who might have died in jail like some of his comrades; his language was transcendent and of absolute agility, later in life he might not have cumulated his efforts in a grandiose yet mislead endeavour like the theory of colours but may have become one of the major existential philosophers, etc.). Omega Men are (spiritual) frontier workers of humanity. Resemblant to that Bhagwan says that beyond/above the „universal intellect“, the fourth level a human being can attain, there is a final, fifth level, at which the distinction between the individual and the universal, the larger context, vanishes and is transgressed. That is when the ego is abolished and the intellect of Christ or of the Buddha emerges. At this stage man has ceased to constantly BECOME something, he has begun to finally BE something, his journey (respectively, as Bhagwan says, his „nightmare“) has come to an end. Thou shalt not settle for something less than to attain that fifth stage, says Bhagwan. And indeed, genius is still full of imperfection and should be superseded. Genius does not necessarily work at the last layer of all things. Genius may be, and usually is, a distinct and marked person, but: a person, likely with an ego, maybe a strong or even narcissistic, therefore annoying ego. Geniuses often do not relate well to other geniuses which is the saddest thing among all. That should be overcome. Man should become devoid of ego and become open space – that is the plan, that is the end of the road. The ego (respectively what is commonly taken as the ego) is disturbing, it distracts, impurifies the thinking process and the emotional economy, and it should not be. When you look at the transcendent genius (like Beckett) he does not resemble very much an ordinary person, or, despite his most distinct individuality, a person at all – rather a fluid, an aura, an atmosphere, he is ghost-like because he contains all qualities at once and they do NOT contradict or stand in the way of each other while probably also not being there in harmony, like the universe or the earth is not harmony, simply all exists at once; the great man is the living microcosm, the all, as Otto Weininger put it. Where the genius maybe tries to and puts his energy into becoming a marked person, the transcendent genius will do everything to evade it. He is impersonal, transindividual, and objective. He only seems to be a marked personality because he is „the center of infinite space“ (Weininger). The hyper-genius has ceased to be a person, let alone ego, and has become a spirit, a soul, a guiding light; even his intellect has transformed along those lines. Ahhh … the transcendent beauty of having gotten rid of human/personal qualities… do you see the luminosity in that?
– The Omega Man can be envisioned as reaching up into the spheres and down into the dark fond, the primal ground, where his interior is the endless hall of mirrors. Genius is kind of universal man, he encircles mankind, but the omega genius encircles all the other geniuses as well and has become universal spirit. The intelligence of the transcendent genius and the Omega Man is the highest and the most alien, yet at the same time the most elementary, the most basic, the most authentic; being eternally eccentric he and his solutions directly adress the core, the heart of it all and are the most profound. – Whereas the genius relates to the world, the hyper-genius relates to the universe (the infinitely larger, boundless context). The genius will strive to create a work of importance, of significance; the transcendent genius, will, more abstractly and more purely, strive to create values. Likewise, the genius may seek a concrete immortality, becoming inscribed in the book/s of mankind, whereas the transcendent genius will rather seek an abstract immortality, he does not thow himself into mankind but into the universe, longs to become one with the ontological texture of the universe. When you look at the genius you may see a spherical space with positive curvature; the genius tries to establish harmony and give words and objects a definitive meaning. When you look at the transcendent genius you see a line of negative curvature, an open universe in which everything flies into the infinite along an eccentric pathway, also in order to establish harmony, but not in the visible spacetime but in a sort of hyperspacetime; in the visible spacetime the transcendent genius seemingly ever creates disruption and dislocation of identity (think, most prominently, of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein or van Gogh). When the genius is constantly convulsing, the hyper-genius seems like constantly exploding, yet both do so in stasis. Look at the ramblings for instance of the transcendent hyper-geniuses of literature like Kafka, Beckett, Shakespeare, Rimbaud or E. Dickinson and you see that behind their words, their language, some deeper structure constantly seeks to emerge and overpower it, that is the dark world, the fond, as well as the heaven that tries to break through, it is the constant shifting of meaning, it is the second world which shimmers through the first, the immediately presented one, the psychosis of the genius language; the works of the (hyper-) genius are characterised when you see behind the first, the immediately presented world a second world emerging. – This nebulaic, yet anti-entropic entity, the purely subjectified and purely objectified trans-person able to navigate freely through inner and through outer space with both the most solid, yet unlocated inner core, is, then, the overman. The overman encircles the earth and is the meaning of the earth. He can communicate with the earth and with any alien civilisation from the depths of outer space since he understands all of those. Potentially, along the above mentioned lines, every man is an overman. The hyper-genius/Omega Man is the most easily understood and embraced by every man, and by the child, and is the trajectory of human endeavour. That includes all and is the bond which connects all. Ahh, the hall of mirrors, what beauty lies in this system… <3
OH YES be taught, my friends: Thou shalt not hold artificial ideas about man! Don´t take man as being overly good or overly evil. Ordinary man, per definition, cannot reach the level of the great man, yet he can reflect him, as a mirror. What concerns me, is that I am 10.000 times more stupid and evil even than ordinary man, yet also me – a worm, not a Cherubim – longs for ascension, just like everyone else. Be taught, my friends.
Micheal Chappelle This is the best description of me and my life that I’ve ever read.
Micheal Chappelle You know me like the back of your hand.