Heraclitus

Heraclitus ~ a.k.a. “The Obscure” He was an heir to a throne, a student of life who gave up all for the path of wisdom, and one cantankerous old coot. He lived in Ephesus, on the Asia Minor coast around 535-475 BC. His writing survived the Persian Empire, the Greeks and then the Romans. Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelis, Nietzsche, Whitehead and Jung have all used his work as a touchstone.

He is known for his doctrine of change: Logos (see below) is both the source and the way the universe operates. The primary meaning of logos is something said; by implication a subject, topic of discourse or reasoning. Secondary meanings such as logic, reasoning, etc. derive from the fact that if one is capable of speech, and then intelligence and reason are assumed. “All things are flowing” is the iconic flux and fire philosophers phrase.

He was not a “let’s all get along” kind of person, he felt most of humankind was stupid and inherently bad, even more so if one disagreed with him. Not surprisingly, he admires war~, “War is the father of all, king of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free”. He is a fan of self-purification and the power gained through self-mastery. “It is not good for men to get all they wish to get. Whatever our desire wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of the soul”.

Before Heraclitus, the Greeks thought of the world as static, unchangeable. He introduced the radical idea of reality being a succession of transitory states. “You can not step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in on you.”

His other radical idea, though we may see it as trivial now, was “It is wise to agree all things are one. In differing it agrees with itself, a backwards turning connection, like that of a bow and a lyre. The path up and down is one the same”. More simply put, there can be no day without night, no warm without cold; opposites cannot exist without each other. He seemed to foreshadow Einstein ~ “all things change to fire and fire exhausted falls back into things”. Energy being the essence of matter or E=mc2.

It is the fragments I find most interesting, snippets of thought left to us incomplete. As he believed all things change, all things flow I like to imagine him enjoying having left us a puzzle… “Things keep their secrets”.

What follows are some of my favorite shards~~~

If everything

Were turned to smoke

The nose would

be the seat of judgment,

Thus in the abysmal dark the soul is known by scent.

What was scattered

Gathers

What was gathered

Blows apart.

The river

Where you set

Your foot just now

Is gone~

Those waters

Giving way to this,

Now this.

The cosmos works

By harmony and tensions,

Like the lyre and the bow.

Therefore, good

And ill are one.

The soul is undiscovered,

Though explored forever

To a depth beyond report.

Applicants for wisdom

Do what I have done

Inquire within.

This last one I found strange comfort in after the birth of my second son, who was severely dis-abled.

Even a soul submerged in sleep

Is hard at work, and helps

Make something of the world.

The fragments are haunting, deep, simple, poetical and thought provoking, well worth searching out at your library or bookshop.
Peace as always and in all ways~Sage

Sphere: Related Content