Heidegger

In a message dated 30/12/2006 09:41:03 GMT Standard Time,
_artefact at t-online.de_ (mailto:artefact@t-online.de) writes: Cologne 30-Dec-2006

Les Smith schrieb:

Nothingness is coming to you, and only out of this nothingness does God
appear. Only out of this nothingness is truth encountered… Osho was asked for
his ten commandments. This was his response:

“You have asked for my Ten Commandments. It’s a difficult matter, because I
am against any kind of commandment. Yet, just for the fun of it, I write:”

1. Never obey anyone’s command unless it is coming from within you also.
2. There is no God other than life itself.
3. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.
4. Love is prayer.
5. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the
means, the goal and attainment.
6. Life is now and here.
7. Live wakefully.
8. Do not swim - float.
9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.

Hegel:
“Das Sein selbst sowie die folgenden Bestimmungen nicht nur des Seins,
sondern die logischen Bestimmungen überhaupt können als Definitionen des
Absoluten, als die metaphysischen Definitionen Gottes angesehen werden; […] Wird
Sein als Prädikat des Absoluten ausgesagt, so gibt dies die erste Definition
desselben: Das Absolute ist das Sein. Es ist dies die (im Gedanken) schlechthin
anfängliche, abstrakteste und dürftigste.”. (”Being itself as well as the
following determinations not only of being, but the logical determinations in
general can be regarded as definitions of the Absolute, as the metaphysical
definitions of God; […] If being is pronounced as a predicate of the
Absolute, this provides the first definition of it. The Absolute is being. This is
(in thought) simply the incipient, most abstract and most meagre definition..”,
Enz I §85, §86 Anm.)

By the same token, the very next determination in Hegel’s _Logik_ — namely,
Nichts, nothingness — is also a predicate of the Absolute.

“Es folgte hieraus die zweite Definition des Absoluten, daß es das Nichts
ist; […] das Nichts, das die Buddhisten zum Prinzip von allem wie zum letzten
Endzweck und Ziel von allem machen, ist dieselbe Abstraktion.” (”It followed
from this the second definition of the Absolute, that it is nothingness;
[…] nothingness which the Buddhists make into the principle of everything as
well as the final purpose and aim of everything is the same abstraction.”, Enz
I §87 Anm.)

Jud:
Nothing is more entertaining than the tickle-and-bump buffoonery of two
transcendentalist tomfool clowns acting out their comedy routines before a
post-Christmastime audience sated with a sickening superfluity of plum pudding,
cranberry sauce and chocolate biscuits. Nothing is more amusing within the
commedia dell’arte community of philosophy, particularly in that branch of the
farce housed ‘neath the billowing canvass of the *Big Top of Being* than the
Heideggerian Harlequinade.

The clash of cymbals and the honking of car-horn bulbs which heralds and
accompanies the entrance into the reificational ring of the two red-nosed
transcendentalist drongos - the standard German thinker-character-clown and the
sly, migratory, oriental-sponger agonist is guaranteed to have the mushroom
audience on their feet and out in the aisles shouting for more before the
spiritual slapstick routine has even begun.

I refer not to Der Öffentlichkeit-Agent Les Smith, nor to Ringmaster Der
Zirkusdirektor Dr. Eldred, but to the white-faced sawdust-dusted Coco Hegel
and his oriental sidekick Osho, formerly known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, known
throughout the Indian subcontinent as *Bhagwan Baggypants.*

As with all religious routines posing as philosophy, the act is aimed at a
heterotrophic audience who are incapable of producing their own mental
energy, but obtain such soporific sustenance like fungi from sucking at the
decomposing detritus of dead ideas.
The routine is timeless - the script predictable. The knockabout prop of
*death* is introduced almost immediately.

A black box with a large white question-mark painted upon its four sides is
drawn into the reificational ring on a small cart drawn by a pocket-sized
dog dressed up in a Periot’s conical hat and a tiny starched tu-tu. The
*auguste* member of the duo, the po-faced Coco opens the box and delves within.
First he extracts a string of sausages which he places around the neck of his
fellow droll - Bhagwan Baggypants with exaggerated seriousness.

Next he digs into the box again and this time comes out with four large
painted cards. Each one bears a word. The words are: *DEATH =* and *NOTHINGNESS
=* and *TRUTH =* and *THE ABSOLUTE.*

The audience falls silent, for such words are guaranteed to overawe any
gathering dumb enough and sufficiently intellectually disabled to pay good money
to watch such low-grade entertainment. Only the sound of the opening of
sweet-wrappers and the crunching of empty beer-cans breaks the hush.

All at once four little dog-carts pulled by tiny dogs enter the ring. Each
cart is fitted with a metal frame surrounded by tiny bells. The frames have
slots and are clamped to the carrosserie. The two clowns slide the painted
boards into the frames.

With a crack of Ringmaster Eldred’s whip and a whoop from the philosopher
clowns the little canine quartet race around and around the outer section of
the ring to a background cacophony of honking horns and tinkling bells, drawing
the two-wheeled carts with their abstractional advertisments behind them.

With a whistle from Bhagwan Baggypants the dogs stop their circular
junketing and move dutifully to the centre of the ring and stand in a tail-wagging
row.

For the initial line-up the words read: DEATH = NOTHINGNESS = TRUTH = THE
ABSOLUTE.

Another whistle from the Bhagwan and the little dogs change their line-up
position.

Now the message reads: TRUTH = THE ABSOLUTE = DEATH = NOTHINGNESS.

Another whistle and the statement reads: NOTHINGNESS = TRUTH = THE ABSOLUTE
= DEATH.

Whistle follows whistle and trite word-combination follows trite
word-combination. One by one the audience, stand, leave their seats and drift up the
aisles and out from beneath the brightly-lit marquee of flapping canvass and
into the moonless dark with its wider canopy of twinkling stars.

*The biggest load of pretentious crap I have ever seen in my life,* mutters
one complainant, drawing up his collar against the cold night air.

*We wuz robbed!* says another bitterly, *I brought my kids here to be
entertained, not to be subjected to the juvenile abstruseness of quasi-wise
wankers.*

*They are no more than mumbling mummers,* interjects a third.

*Do they think that a mere juggling and jiggling of semantic abstraction is
*PHILOSOPHY?*

*Those poseurs should be run out of town for conning the townsfolk! shouts a
fourth.

*We demand our money back!*

*Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! screams the crowd as the cry is taken
up by the streaming departees that have spread out from the flapping exit.
The muttering macrofungi suddenly quieten and disperse across the field
like the parasitic hair-like filaments of some monsterous myxomycota, sucking at
the grass and plant matter like some Heideggerian scleroderman hoover.

Alone within the darkened tent the two rejected clowns sit upon the black
box wiping the motley from their sweat-streaked faces.
The little dogs sit around them, whimpering expectantly to be released from
their harness.

*I think it is time we dreamed up a different act Baghwan,* sighs Coco, *The
public are starting to see through this crap and they don’t laugh any more.*

*What about trying an Indo-European version of a Nigerian 419 fraud, named
after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that it violates, on the
Internet?* queries the dusky droll.

*I read that such con-tricks employ as many as 250,000 people in Nigeria -
surely there is room for two clapped-out so-called philosopher to make a few
reichmarks or rupees? The techniques of the scam are very similar to
transcendentalist *philosophy* - the name-dropping, the let’s pretend, the
reality-challenged audience, the lowbrow target market, the audacity and presumption of
idiocy on behalf of the patsy - it will be as easy as falling off a log.*

The Bhagwan draws a white rabbit from within a voluminous hidden pocket. It
runs a short distance and sits in the sawdust washing its face with its paws.
The dusky defrauder digs deeper and out comes a crumpled newspaper.

*It says here that the Nigerian scam is hugely successful. According to this
1997 article losses just in the United States alone total over $100 million
in the last 15 months, and that’s just the ones which are known of. Most
people don’t report them.*

*It’s the same with ex-trannies,* murmurs Coco in the guttural asphyxiate
croak that passes for German, *most are too ashamed to admit that they were ever
taken in by the guff - it is as if they were frightened of being caught out
downloading porn - they would hate the neighbours to find out.*

The weird philosophical duo smile and shake hands. The writing is on the
wall.

*It’s the library tomorrow and a hunt for books by Nigerian philosophers. We
might as well call in at the *Transcendentalist Joke Shop* on the way and buy
some black slap, nostril-enlarger plugs and penis extensions - we might as
well look the part! *

Silently, without a backward look, they leave the huge tent behind them and
followed by the four little dogs and the hopping rabbit walk with squared
shoulders towards the huge silvery moon that has suddenly popped up to greet
them from behind its metaphysical mountain lair of Crifasian darkling
clouds.

regards,

Jud Evans. Personal Website: _http://evans-experienhttp://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…)

Posted on Saturday, December 30th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
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