The Art of Resurrection

Rebirth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He chose to die to prove that life is everlasting. The point that this raises in the mind of any thinking individual, is whether such a proposition is true. At some point in the life of an individual, he may well be confronted with such a intellectual inquiry.

It is indeed curious that man may have such an understanding about himself. Thus, it ought to be surmised that such an act of inquiry is for the devoutly curious only.

In the last 200 years, the world was introduced to many illustrious personalities that we came to institutionalize as philosophers and drew from their writings. From the writings of Virgil to Jean Paul Sarte, in a collative exercise of the thoughts of man, they each represented their experiences of the phenomenon of life.

As we perused these with intellectual devotion, we must have been struck with such a curiosity. In all, one may recall at will a favorite phrase or expression that we are fond of. From the Austrian Philosopher, Hegel, comes a meeting he had with Napoleon. Afterwards, he remarked of the incident that he ' met the world spirit on a horse.'

The remark is significant for the perception he conveyed. The meaning, derived by the reader is that Hegel's understanding, termed as a philosophy, was a lived-in experience for the professor. To see with one's own eyes, the learning we have undertaken, is a remarkable truth of our insight and knowledge of our experiences.

In our experiences of the day to day, we often encounter such a situation, where some aspect of our profound natures within, rises to the surface for an expression of itself. We refer to such moments as an epiphany and relegate it to the religio-mystic aspect of what we are. But we preserve such special moments as a unique and true sense of what we are in our experiences.

Over a period of time, such special uniqueness that we preserve is supported with will but as yet does not reveal itself to our knowing sense. It is here that the curious among us decides to take it a step further. We give up on a defensive, obsessive fondness in a private relation to what we are and endeavor to improve our skills for the experience and civil expression of the phenomenon.

Such may well be the act of death and the strive to resurrection. It would over the course of its practice, consume all and come back to restore leaf to limb, by the guide of knowledge discovered by the individual.

The flame that it comes to encounter is its own life, organized on a previous occasion to lead the individual by the nose. In engaging it, the individual creates a relation to it, identifiable by the way that he collaborates with it, cultivates a volitional nature with it or acquiesces with the content of what it is.

It is as if a door has opened to the individual, experienced in isolation from others, that leads to the nature of true experience in the world. But it casts him out of the purely mundane in society, withdraws all affection and support and causes the individual to take responsibility for himself in his nakedness of being as a child in nature.

In the isolating wildernesses of his wanderings in the mind, he realizes that something or someone seeks to know of himself. In time, he realizes that it is his own self. Like whales beaching themselves, the experience of the self produces a behavior so bizarre that we are forced to deny it vehemently.

In the madness of a King George or a Rasputin, one encounters such quirky character. We find an ally or two in the conundrum who seem irritated that we should be baffled and that we show no backbone for such a study. All together its enough to make a person not go home to mother's for the traditional Christmas get-together.

In the metamorphic transformation that is engendered, one discovers that we have apparently screwed up somewhere and our life force is steadying our nerves for a greater revelation than we had cared to hope. Everything changes thereafter and yet it is not without a curious familiarity. Perhaps we may have come back to our original curiosity.

In coming back full circle, our charisma returns to take its place. But its changed somehow. Its no longer the champion of causes for which we flew around the world and got our noses stuck in other people's affairs. It is sedate, calm and creates a focus on our own needs.

It makes contact with the youth we once were, when we may have had the fire lighted under our backsides. We must learn to sit down again. Be still.

It may be time to catalogue our experiences and put it in a perspective that's suited to our temperament and to the common social practices that we encounter. We should, in the process, put the lion to sleep.

In a sculpture of a dying lion in Luzern, the artist portrays an event of some magnitude, not the usual daily event. One notices from the sculpture, a battle weary veteran, who appears content, for now, that he has done enough to maintain soul in body.

In some ways, it dawns on the individual that he may have just experienced something akin to death and resurrection. His continued sense of curiosity may then be channeled into the expression of the experience. This he undertakes for the continuity of knowledge of the self.