1,
Truth that is lived, authentically, has certain fruits. We know these are true break-throughs because we know the predicament they are up against. That fate which ‘all flesh is heir to’ is the yardstick of truth= [1] anything that embraces it and comes through, and [2] comes through with all who are caught up in it, is existentially true.
A= A mystic’s fruit of truth– philanthropy
Philanthropy means, in Greek, to be a friend of humanity: all humanity is implied.
“..a person stirred by zeal is ill with a grievous sickness. While you presume to stir up your zeal against the sickness of others, you will have banished health from your own soul. You should rather concern yourself with your own healing. But if you wish to heal those that are sick, know that the sick have greater need of loving care than of rebukes. Zeal is not.. a form of wisdom: rather it is one of the sicknesses of the soul, arising from narrow-mindedness and profound ignorance. The beginning of divine wisdom is the serenity acquired from generosity of soul and forbearance with human infirmities.”
– St Isaac of Syria
B= A warrior’s fruit of truth– sincerity
If philanthropy is the mark of a soul won over to the quest for truth, then sincerity is the mark of a heart struggling to stand upright on truth as its only ground in the abyss. Sincerity finds ground where anything else in the heart falls down and falls through.
A certain person said, “In the saint’s tomb there is a poem that goes,
If in one’s heart
He follows the path of sincerity,
Though he does not pray,
Will not the Spirit protect him?”
A man answered him by saying, “You seem to like poetry. I will answer you with a poem:
As everything in the world is but a sham,
Death is the only sincerity.
Becoming as a dead man in one’s daily living is the following of the path of sincerity.”
– Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Samurai.
C= A king’s fruit of truth– joining the mess
A king is charged with responsibility for and service to the common ground that only holds up because it includes all persons, and excludes none.
“The wise man goes to the king, very worried, and says, ‘I have read the signs and they tell me next year all the crop of wheat in the kingdom will be poisoned. Everyone who eats it will go mad.’ The king ponders the bad news. ‘What do you suggest?’ he asks his spiritual mentor and advisor. The sage replies, ‘By storing up supplies now, you and I can refrain from eating any of the poisoned wheat, so that when the whole world goes mad, at least you and I will remain sane.’ The king is silent. At last he says, ‘No, we cannot do as you suggest, because a king must remain a part of his people. If we do as you say, we will set ourselves apart, and in that event, we will cease to be able to do anything worthwhile for them.’ He paused, pondering further. ‘Here is what we will do’ the king said. ‘We will eat the poisoned grain like everyone else, but before we do, we will each make a black mark on our forehead, so that when we look at each other, we will know we are mad’!”
– Traditional, Hasidic Judaism.
D= A holy fool’s fruit of truth– laughter
The huge and rolling laughter emanating from the belly acknowledges our own, and the world’s, delusion and the house of cards built on top of it. If we do not admit we are sick, we cannot be healed; if we do not admit we are laying in the dust, we cannot get up.
“There are things that even the wise fail to do, while the fool hits the point. Unexpectedly discovering the way to life in the midst of death, he bursts out in hearty laughter.”
Sengai
In all four of these differing fruits of truth, this is where the Tree of Life finally flowers: it embraces the Tree of Knowledge, to redeem it.
How is this reached?
2,
Lived truth is a ‘praxis’ ala Aristotle, not a ‘theoria’ ala Plato.
Lived truth is a ‘drama’ ala Aristotle, not an ‘apatheia’ ala Evagrius.
Lived truth is a story beyond any archetype divinely ‘pre-set’ in the heavens or arbitrarily ‘constructed’ on earth.
Lived truth is a poetry and music impossible to put into words.
The story is heartbreaking, the poetry and the music are the inarticulate uttering and the silent crying of this heartbreak.
3,
It cannot be explained.
Those who live the existentialism of will and mind—speaking not of lived truth but of making an ‘interpretation’ of life, and referring not to testing and proving meaningfulness in meaninglessness but of ‘inventing’ a meaning sturdy enough to support a life—can never understand the existentialism of passion’s more crazy leap.
The existentialism that is spiritual takes a step that the existentialism which is philosophical cannot take. The former trusts more, and thus endures more. It sees the whole fated mystery, the whole fated struggle, through to the end.
The step cannot be understood.
First it must be lived.
It is only understood after it is lived.
Passion is what makes the leap without demanding to first understand it.
Passion could not do this but for two things: it is irrationally ready to go, and prepared to go much deeper, much farther, for no reason that reason can grasp; and it is summoned by a call that addresses it deep down, and to which it replies by following its irrational urge.
Nietzsche: “What is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil.”
Passion is what we do beyond good and evil, beyond sense and absurdity, beyond purpose and futility, beyond value and nihilism, beyond life and death, for love.
Love cannot be spoken. Love is lived.