In the Beginning

Philosophy begins with a mysterious awe for existence - a moment of realization like fireworks going off in the distance. We begin to wonder in total amazement for what all of reality is. Questions so simple in origin brings the awe-filled contemplative mind to perplexity - allowing the soul transcendent joy when "truth" is grasped.


Reality and the experience of truth goes beyond what the pen can write. It even goes beyond recalling the moments of seeing the world from such a subtle and lucid viewpoint. "Truth" is an ever reoccurring phenomenon that the mind finds itself to be in, consumed in the wonderment of existing. Existence brings the Self to contemplate the meaning and purpose of lived-life both in its joyful moments of enlightenment and the dark moments of isolation.


When contemplating the truth, philosophical thoughts emerges from the mystery of consciousness. Questions that traverse the boundaries of the given, brings to light the wonder of what it means to be alive, and to have the ability to "see" and experience the world in all its beauty and awkwardness. It is "here" that the mind is able to differentiate the radical separation of the world that exists in its own mind and that exists beyond the mind.


The question: Which came first, consciousness or the world that our conscious self perceives? From a simplistic viewpoint the world that the mind is able to perceive exists as a separate domain, a realm that interconnects all conscious and sentient beings. It is here that our existence plays a role like actors on the stage of life. However, without the minds inner world, isolated in its own realm of exclusiveness, the outer world would be non-existent to the perceiving mind.


It is this separation of the world of the mind (what I will call the formal world) and the outer world (what I will call the Matterial-Phenomenal world) that is the key to creating a philosophical identity that allows for a creative transcendence beyond the simplicity of the given. By differentiating the two domains, the mind is able to have clarity over its own conscious self and what exists in the matterial phenomenal realm.


Yet, even with this separation the experience of living and of having consciousness remains to be a wonder. "What is 'this world' that surrounds the Self? and "What does it mean to be thinking and pondering the meaning of existence? It is with these questions that consciousness is able to begin to understand the perplexity that underlies the experience of philosophy.


We begin to think logically about philosophy by constructing a system dependent on certain experiences and linguistic phrases. Thus the genesis of the process begins by realizing the "nay" of life in the void of mindless existence for a "Yea" of something more. This process of negating existence in the matterial-phenomenal realm towards a transcendent self-consciousness in the formal world is the beginning to the affirmation of the "yea-of philosophy".


When we affirm the philosophical life of contemplation, we begin to distance ourselves from the mundane world of our senses. Stillness and the clarity of the thoughts and questions that arise in the mind take-on a life of its own. "Here" no longer is a spacial location, but signifies the place where thoughts arise. From consciousness emerges all of what the Self experiences both internally and externally.


The discovery of "Truth" therefore begins from an internal motion to understand the world in a logical way. From its own identity in the Formal world, consciousness perceives the matterial world like a tourist in a foreign land. Existence becomes isolated as it retracts into its own subjectivity. A new process and purpose emerges as the Mind looks to philosophy as a tool to bring the Self closer to the "unknown."