Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 179 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XXII (part 7)
Now we have established that illogicality (from our standpoint) is the necessary condition of the knowledge of truth or of the real world.
This does not mean that everything that is illogical is true and real, but it means absolutely, that everything true and real is illogical from our standpoint.
We have established the fact that it is impossible to approach the truth with our logic, and we have also established the possibility of penetrating into these heretofore inaccessible regions by means of the new canon of thought .
The consciousness of the necessity for such an instrument of thought undoubtedly existed from far back.
For what, in substance, does the formula Tat twam asi represent if not THE FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM OF HIGHER LOGIC?
Thou art That means: thou art both thou and not thou , and corresponds to the super-logical formula, A is both A and Not-A .
If we examine ancient writings from this standpoint, then we shall understand that their authors were searching for a new logic , and were not satisfied with the logic of the things of the phenomenal world.
The seeming illogicality of ancient philosophical systems, p.
279 which portrayed an ideal world, as it were, instead of an existing one, will then become comprehensible, for in these portrayals of an ideal world, systems of higher logic often lie concealed.
______ One of such misunderstood attempts to construe a system of higher logic, to give a precise instrument of thought, penetrating beyond the limits of the visible world, is the treatise by Plotinus On Intelligible Beauty .
Describing HEAVEN and THE GODS, Plotinus says: All the gods are venerable and beautiful, and their beauty is immense.
What else however is it but intellect through which they are such?
And because intellect energizes in them in so great a degree as to render them visible (by its light)?
For it is not because their bodies are beautiful.
For these gods that have bodies do not through this derive their subsistence as gods; but these also are gods through intellect.
For they are not at one time wise, and at another destitute of wisdom; but they are always wise, in an impassive, stable and pure intellect.
They likewise know all things, not human concerns (precedaneously) but their own, which are divine, and such as intellect sees.
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For all things there are heaven, and there the earth is heaven, as also are the sea, animals, plants, and men.
The gods likewise that it contains do not think men undeserving of their regard, nor anything else that is there (because everything there is divine).
And they occupy and pervade without ceasing the whole of that (blissful) region.
For the life which is there is unattended with labor, and truth (as Plato says in the "Phædrus") is their generator, and nutriment, their essence and nurse.
They likewise see all things, not those with which generation, but those with which essence is present.
And they perceive themselves in others.
For all things there are diaphanous; and nothing is dark and resisting, but everything is apparent to everyone internally and throughout.
For light everywhere meets with light; since everything contains all things in itself and again sees all things in another.
So that all things are everywhere , and all is all.
Each thing likewise is everything .
And the splendor there is infinite.
For everything there is great, since even that which is small is great.
The sun too which is there is all the stars; and again each star is the sun and all the stars.
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In each however, a different property predominates, but at the same time all things are visible in each .
Motion likewise there is pure; for the motion is not confounded by a mover different from it.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The idea that 'everything contains all things in itself' implies a structural reflection of the whole within the part, consistent with correspondence principles.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The text describes the splendor of the higher realm as 'infinite' and states that 'everything there is great,' aligning with the concept of ontological infinity.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
[auto] The text describes a state where 'everything contains all things in itself and again sees all things in another,' reflecting the part-whole identity.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
[auto] The formula 'Tat twam asi' (Thou art That) and the statement 'each thing is everything' imply a merging of individual identity with the divine whole.
The divine fullness or totality of the highest realm, populated by aeons and divine attributes, contrasted with the deficient material world.
[auto] The description of the intelligible realm where 'light everywhere meets with light' and 'everything contains all things' aligns with the concept of divine fullness.