The ultimate nightmare of the philosopher is to die without knowing the Truth. Whether a philosopher can write it down, explain it, or teach it… this is all immaterial. In Sanskrit, Existence is called śat (सत्), and śat is also Truth. What is true exists. What is not true does not exist. The philosopher’s quest is to know Existence.
A philosopher is, above all else, a thinker who knows that thought alone is an unguided missile — it does not lead to Truth with certainty. Thought, rationality, and the material substrate of the brain that enables rationality do not bring truths into existence. They are our devices to reverse engineer a way back to the foundational axiomatic Truth. We confuse the thing that creates with the thing that is created. We confuse the thing that has evolved with the thing from which all else has evolved. The former looks more attractive, brighter, alive, and functional. The Truth seems impractical, distant, useless, and primitive. The philosopher recognizes this ignorance and weaves a lonely path.
The philosopher starts life like everyone else — a scared anxious child trying to survive the fearsome confusion of the great Dragon. The child latches on to the helping hand of Maya — a belief system — a set of role models, rituals, practices, an ego — ideas and thoughts that numb the confusion. The child grows into an adult and starts recognizing the inevitable inconsistencies of Maya. At this point, the philosopher realizes that the prudent path is to wipe the slate clean and begin a new journey toward enlightenment — to understand the Truth through the filter of direct experience and inference. Dissatisfied with mere survival, the philosopher boldly takes the logical next step, retracing a path back, dismantling beliefs along the way by exposing their inconsistencies. The original despair and suffering are laid bare. You can hear the dragon screaming at you — Give up! Go back to the bliss of ignorance if you know what’s good for you.
The philosopher has little time. If you survive the despair, you will be thrown into a cacophony of ideas. Many ideas are bound to be inconsistent with Existence — dead ends. The philosopher must recognize and avoid them. If you develop a “novel idea” in a state of desperation, you must be careful — it may be a deceptively enticing mirage. You may use up precious time and get nothing in return.
Philosophers are chided for not being more like scientists — for not coming up with something useful like smartphones and satellites. The skeptic says — What is the outcome of your craft? What is your product? The philosopher has to shrug off this disdain.
Most people do not visualize a philosopher as a colorful character, living a routine, or being healthy. A philosopher is best imagined pouring away at books with thick glasses in a pensive room, recursively digging away and disappearing into dark caverns. The philosopher is usually in poor health and lives on cup-a-noodles in black and white drawings. There is a good reason for all this. The philosopher proceeds systematically from the rationality of everyday events to thinking about Thought, the experience of Thought, the notion of Self, and the source of Experience. When one wants to contemplate Experience, it becomes clear that the Self restricts such contemplation — it restricts experience. However, it is dangerous to suppress the Self because there is a thin line between suppression and destruction. A wrong step can lead to self-destruction — a withering away — madness — death. Contemplating philosophers must constantly choose to let the Self exist but keep it downtrodden like the Nataraja’s right foot on the demon Mulyaka.
The philosopher is in a fight to the death. There is intense fear when the Self/I/Ego is suppressed — as if you are being choked to death. In meditation, I have traversed the unspeakable terror of being close to non-existence. One must unhesitatingly jump across the abyss because one cannot free the ego and simultaneously hold on to it. The champion philosopher is fighting a cage match — unable to give up, tired by the threat of madness, death, and a slow dissolution into nothingness. Moving forward, nonetheless. The final prize is the Truth. For the loser, life ends without meaning.
If you wish to be a philosopher, know what lies ahead. There is no need to be afraid. If you wish not to be, know that you are still the bedrock of philosophy. If all of us were philosophers like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Spinoza, half of us would die early deaths in dark obscure corners, never seeing the light of day and leaving behind few survivors. If all of us were philosophers, soon there would be no humanity left and no philosophers to continue the recursive search for the Truth. Thank Existence for philosophers. Thank Existence for the rest.
