The Philosophical Path

Awakening to–philosophical life.

Contemptu mundi: the belief that the everyday world is no longer a home. Worse: Revulsion. Disgust. Flooding the senses: total ugliness.

Loneliness amid or beyond the ordinary world.

Despair.

Three-fold queries. Where are my fellows, my friends of virtue? Where is my beautiful soul? (Am I not also contemptible amid the muck?) Where is the beautiful splendor of the highest good?

The plight of the monk, the mystic, the philosopher dwelling in the modern city. (Not a sage.)

Intimations, yet, of illumination. Beautiful, resplendent. Look:

Once I saw the mountain. (Diversity) Then I did not see the mountain. (Unity) Now I see the mountain. (Unity-in-Diversity)