Let It In!: Priming Experience

The experiential marker of life need not conflate with religiosity. Religiosity is a metaphysical conclusion to the beautiful sensation that is reality. How to make sense of the existential absurdity of living. Yet this does not preclude spirituality nor divinity. Yet, also need not include them simultaneously. Humanity’s prime interest is with cognitive comprehension. What are these things, How do things operate and why do they operate this way. Over the course of time we have discovered answers to these questions with the help of science and coped with the help of religion. Religion provides answers to the unknown. It is the comporting solution to the scary unforeseen. 

Science is the gateway to explanation. It is the method of discovery. Scientific tools of structural logic explain phenomena but are limited in scope. Science is mathematical and cognitively centred. It can produce cold logic but cannot transcend rationality. It is simply a finite framework with a list of rules. Science is procedural, just like in a game of chess the bishop can only move diagonally on its shade and a knight can only move in a L radius, so to science follows a game model with numbers. A scientific equation is a set of rules that mark it as genuine phenomenon. To take three examples: one from biology, chemistry and physics. Biologically hereditary traits are passed down from parent to offspring. Which traits will passed on. Scientifically we have assessed which are dominant and which are recessive. Concerning eye colour, brown is dominant and green is recessive. An equation of sorts is constructed in the form of a punnet square. Where let us say using my parents one parent has brown and one parent has green. Because I have green eyes my father must be dominant recessive. Meaning out of the four options there was a fifty percent chance I would have green eyes or inversely I must have a parent with green eyes since green is recessive. Additionally, it must be that not only does one of my parents have green eyes but that the dominant trait parent carries a recessive gene. In Chemistry ionic bonds are between two elements: a metal and non metal. Each element can only hold eight electrons so in order to complete the circuit they combine. Table salt is made up of sodium and chlorine (NaCl). Sodium has two electrons and chlorine has six to make eight. Covalent bonds follow the same structure but instead share electrons so water is two hydrogens and one oxygen (H2O) or carbon dioxide is (Co2). For water two hydrogens add to the six oxygens to make eight elections and for carbon dioxide it is the four carbon electrons that are distributed in pairs to the two oxygens. Finally, physics follows equations to understand reality. Recall Einstein’s famous E=MC2-energy is equivalent to the mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Another example is the equation for gravity. Calculating the amount of gravity follows the equation F=ma that force equals mass multiplied by acceleration. Science explains how the world works but it does not effect the emotive nature of man. 

There is a meta-level that analyses human behaviour. Psychologists, sociologists, among others research the human mind. Why do people act a certain way. The academic subject of religious study was a historicist proposal to its construction but it forwent the entire spiritual complex of religious experience. The scientific study of religion has its perks in proposing a genus and congressional understanding but it detracts from the overall purpose of religion. It turns a societal format into a microscopic experiment. To this day according to atheists the greatest proof for god is personal experience. The idea of religion is less about the intellectual component and more for the spiritual fervour. Mathematics is a sole logical competent to frame the argument but it mitigates the emotive will to the existential. 

The biblical god contrasts with the Kantian god as the latter is a mechanical construction while the former is an active agent. The biblical god is a being with personality and expression, the Kantian god is a statue. The narrational aspect supplies an emotional foil to the transcendent. The supernal is an immanent force in the world. This applies across religions. Norse mythology narrates episodes of divine battles to enclose a certain relation to man. They are supermen rather than supreme. They are limited to fate. The Maimonidean god is beyond time but the biblical god is anthropomorphic and anthropopathic. He is prior to history but also part of it. The rabbinic world professed an immanence insofar of divine aid but not physical intervention. Yet even Maimonides distanced himself from Kant. For the former it was the intellect that led to God. An intellectual experience that heightened the awareness of infinity. The transcendent could be understood by comprehension of knowledge. Though this borders on knowing of him rather than knowing him. The biblical god is known personally by his disclosure to the people via the prophet. The prophetic experience is the divine encounter, the experiential model. It is elevated beyond the simple miraculous. It is not an event on earth but in a spiritual realm. The difference between Moses seeing the burning bush and God speaking from it is the speech itself. It is the divine call, the encounter with infinity that signifies the intimate existential experience. It is God’s dialogue of Miriam’s gossip than her leprosy punishment. 

The logic of reality is nothing without the experience. As I write here I am sitting on a boat cruising through the ocean, observing the beautiful mountains in Sarande, Albania. The boundless hilltops the pebble layered beaches and the vast ocean blue dividing the pretty isolated islands. The noble notion of taking in the moment is high crime against the pictures to remember. I write here not to besmirch the grand overlay of poetic liturgy but to convey the absolute experiential motion that is due to momentary actualisation. It is self identification with the present, aware of the moment. Journalising events is a proper reminder but carpe diem is the signature human expression to victory. 

The valuational construct is endemic to the human psyche. Rationally deducing events misses the presence of mind. The value is emotionally contrived as a spiritual pursuit. There is an autonomous engagement that elevates the driven narrative of the self. Feeling inclined to the moment and powerfully standing tall. Seduced by the lustful beauty of momentary silence catches the alarmed seeker in a hypnosis. Lost in the moment is the slogan of proper evaluation. Absolutely focused on the present. It is the self merited equation deciphered by the experience. The personal disclosed encounter heightens the privatised experience with an emotional tide of exerted energy. The self is mentally preoccupied with the action at hand. 

Logic is not the antithesis of experience but it is the preventative preoccupation. The experience is the existential expression. Logic analyses the situation but does not live it. It is fundamental to the existential self but with the experiential garb it is like wearing a see-through wardrobe. There is something lacking in the event. The experience is self driven and existentially pleasing. Logic chooses the experiences but cannot emotionally comprehend them. It is the speculative possibilities instead of the energy surge itself. 

This reminds me of the Heschelian mindset of the world. Heschel argued for an experiential approach to God and Torah. He believed in finding God via the sublime and mysterious. God is hidden but it is the seeker who unveils him. He was a spiritual guru who advocated for spiritual escalation to divine expression. He railed against what he coined pan-halakhism, a law devoid of spirit. Intent was a hallmark of proper religious expression. Heschel’s model was imbibing a spiritual sense into the realistic existentialism. Seeing the beauty beyond the science. 

For Heschel, the sublime is the divine. His experiential approach guided toward a deity but this need not be the end. The sublime may solely be a profound neurosis constructed by the brain’s neurotic emotionality. The naturalist in me considers the world to be a beautiful canvas with much to see and learn. The creator is a transcendent deity who has brought life to his art. It is not merely a portrait but a breathing civilisation. The artist has left his art to fend for itself. Yet, it is the art that must endure its own creation. Lost in rational discourse escapes the artistry. It is an unforgiven sin to desert one’s own existence. The intellectualisation borders on the extreme. It attempts to know without experiencing. The art must not only ponder but link to nature. He is to be cogently aware of his surroundings. 

Whether divine or not the universe as an entity meddles in human affairs. It is the cycle of life that is perpetually interceded by external stimuli. Instead of simple pondering there is pounce on opportunities. To live and grow. To advance the self in the pursuit of development. To not be isolated by one’s own thoughts caught up in intellectual exercises. To be awakened by the sublime outside. To breath in the fresh air and listen to the crickets at night. 

Phenomenology has been a foot hold in my philosophical quest for the past few years. I remember reading through the Stanford philosophy page trying to understand from Husserl’s invention to Heidegger’s ontology to Levinas’ ethics. Till this day the details are quite hazy. It is a very complex orientation but I do find the subject matter quite intriguing. The goal of phenomenology  is interpret the subject’s view of reality. It is a subjective point of view linking between the subject and the object. A psychological force of connectivity and consciousness focused on the sensory. It centralises on experiential data: perception memory thought and emotion. The subject’s connection to these things is called intentionality, it is the experiential link to these varied phenomena. The relation of the self to this complex persona is highly internal but it also is symbolic of his relation to the world as a whole. It is the experiential moment not just of an intrinsic matrix but a totalised entity. 

Yet the philosophical study of phenomenology should not mitigate the experience. The how to experience need not confuse the experience itself. It analyses the meta-level but it is a start for a clear cut methodology of subject to object matter. The big plus is the validation of self sensory aggregation. It is not truly cruel to present the subjective element. It is a genuine marker of naturalised perception. The experience is bolstered by self empowerment drawn from deep profound intent. It is not merely the exquisite scientific clause but the emotive self expression. The self is engrossed in the routine. Yet, this is untrue for me. I am engrossed in my thoughts. It is the action that is necessary. The primitive involvement in the actualisation of the self. To be wholeheartedly swamped with the present. To be severely encased in a designated route. It is not the subconscious habitually acting but to be motivated in the action. The self encounters the sublime in a pernicious sensation of exalt. 

For me, I am stranded between the world of logic and experience. The two are not mutually exclusive but definitionally logic remains an isolating exercise in the mind. It is the concentration in the confines of spatial abstraction. Experience is the concretised motion of the self to a different plane. It is the movement beyond the pondering. It is the bodily expressive notification motivating a presence of mind. It is not stuck in the head but entrenched in action. It is the perpetuated conscious of the moment without any analysation necessary. It is a free flowing of enjoyment. Living deliberately focused externally on reality and its personal affect. The logical mind reduces the emotive aspect of the experience mitigating conscious awareness. The ordinary remains a routine habit without registration. Transforming the ordinary into extraordinary is a mental shift of focus. A maximisation of moment via expressive feelings and focus. Enjoying the present with a sublime aspiration. The sublime, the mysterious is the joyfully filled self involved in personal expression.