Table of Contents
Illumination, Inspiration, Utility, Embodiment
Curiosity, Humility, Rigour
Introduction
Anamnesis (recollection of one’s higher nature) and Entelechia (the unfolding of one’s form), pursued with Sincerity and Integrity, constitute the ground of Ethics at the Registers of Intelligibility and Determination.
We know that this will necessarily take distinct forms and have different intentions. Some men are brave, and it is sinful for them to be timid. Some men are temperate, and it is a sin for them to be brash. Some men are passionate, and it is a sin for them to be austere.
Here we will descend further, considering this ground at the Register of Mechanism.
We know why we must apprehend our essence (to disclose the Divine), we feel compelled to pursue our essence (to become the fullest expression of what we are), but before anything can be done, how are we now to proceed?
What grounds Ethics at the Register of Mechanism? We have a goal, we wish to pursue it: what is the plan?
Orientation
Bear in mind that the following constitutes predominantly a re-description, at lower registers, namely that of Determination and Mechanism, the ideas we first specified in the Book of God.
Inner and Outer Gurus
It will be useful here to introduce some language namely that of the Inner Guru and Outer Guru1.
Definition: The Inner Guru is the immanent apprehension of one’s own telos or essence: it is the inward disclosure of the Self-as-is, through which the Divine draws the Self-as-manifest towards intelligible perfection. The Inner Guru is not necessarily the perfected essence itself, but that essence as inwardly intimated, understood, and progressively clarified.
Definition: The Outer Guru is the exemplary external symbol to which we refer in order to orient ourselves, to better understand the Inner Guru, and which mediates our connection to it, facilitating the closure of the lacuna between the self-as-manifest and the self-as-truly-is. The Outer Guru is a Pole relative to some principle, domain, and register that is recognised by each of us as such.
Through the Inner Guru, the pull of the Divine becomes inwardly intelligible: through much interrogation, interpretation and soul-searching, of our own natures. It is what we intuit within ourselves about who we are really meant to be, and what function we serve within Reality.
The issue here, of course, is that the call of the Inner Guru, as a result of our degraded and occluded states, is often veiled, distorted, or confused and thereby, we face an issue of circularity.
How do we know we are being pulled to the right thing, and that our moral judgments, our recognitions, and the worldview we inhabit is true?
If the heart is a mirror meant for the reflection of the Sacred, then our mirrors are cloudy and veiled. We are pointed in the wrong direction. But how to burn off the occlusions and defects? How to point in the right direction?
Here we require an exemplar: a Pole whose comparative clarity disciplines (via Wrath) our interpretation, and helps distinguish between the Sacred, the Source, and simply its symbols. This is the Outer Guru.
Recursive Selfhood
Let us posit, for the moment, that we have set our hearts upon a given Pole at some register. We have identified it. We will address the question of distinguishing true Poles from mere projections or shadows below.
For example, this Pole always exists at some Canonical Register, in some domain, relative to some principle. A Saint is the Pole of human perfection, Revelation is the Pole of speech and determination, a Tradition is the Pole of collective orientation and spiritual practice.
How does this work? What happens now?
Notice that the initial moment of recognition of the Pole must first arise from within, from the Inner Guru. It is what recognises the external symbol as a clearer disclosure of the perfection towards which we are obscurely and confusedly drawn.
The first step is elicited from within, i.e. we hear, through the distortions and occlusions of the self-as-manifest, the Inner Guru draw our attention to some external symbol. This initial orientation is an act of Divine Grace, since even our ability to recognise the Sacred is itself participation in the Sacred itself.
The Inner Guru is the burning bush from whence we hear the call (which is not the bush). Assume for the moment that despite our occlusions, we are not misrecognising or falling into error, and instead have correctly been drawn to a Pole.
Note: This is Ghazali’s account in the al-Munqidh min al-Dalal or Deliverance from Error, by which our deliverance begins through a light cast by God into the breast.
So, the Divine turns us or initiates us towards Him. We then, in our occluded, degraded, and veiled state approach the Pole, who then acts upon us.
This further clarifies us, lessening the distance between the Self-as-manifest and the Self-as-truly-is. Naturally, at the Register of Intelligibility, this effect makes it only clearer for us to apprehend the Inner Guru, and similarly at the lower Registers, we are more inspired, are given more instruments and habits, and have performed more deeds.
This draws us closer to the Pole who continues to point us in the direction of the Divine, and the effect compounds and recurs again and again, until the Self is purified (tazkiyah).
The appropriate metaphor here is that of falling, as if in love, down a helical slide towards Being, picking up speed with each rotation, each iteration clarifying the soul further, and further clarifying the self’s connection to the Inner Guru.
This is recursive selfhood.
We continue to fall down this helical slide until we have ascended via the Fourfold Path, through Initiation (the initial turn, the burning away of occlusions, the wrath enacted by the self-as-is upon the self-as-manifest), and then the Opening (the recognition of the Inner Guru, the invitation from the Real), Ascent (the approach to the Divine, the eradication of some aspect of self-as-manifest), and finally the Return (the consolidation of the clarified essence within us).
Note that the Inner Guru (and ultimately the Divine) is prime: it is both the initiator and the ultimate end of this Path. The Outer Guru is simply the catalyst, the mirror which reflects the Divine attempting to disclose itself through you back at you, that you may recognise better who you are truly meant to be.
This has a few interesting consequences. Firstly, the Pole/Outer Guru will simply reflect your clarified essence back at you for you to incorporate. In the Pole, you are not seeing another but the Self-as-is, and it ought to be understood as such. The correct function of the Pole here is not to impose itself upon you, but to unshackle you from your illusions by permitting you to first recall (anamnesis), and subsequently, become (entelechy) who you are meant to be. The Pole is a mirror above all else, and that is how one is correctly oriented.
Secondly, consider that the Pole, as we have been referring to it here, is itself by definition (maximal clarity) simply disclosing the Divine to you, so when you consider the Pole, its form even though initiatically indispensable, is not ultimate: it is the Divine demonstrating the Inner Guru to you through an intermediary (the Pole).
The Divine is seeking Himself in you.
Finally, consider that this fall, if undertaken, takes place purely as a result of the dialogue between the Divine as manifest through the Inner Guru and as manifest through the Outer Guru.
The self-as-manifest (you, and everything you currently are) is not the subject of this process, but the object.
In order for this to happen, one must fall, surrender to the call of the Divine. This is the mechanism by which the interpretant is transformed qua Not Objectivity but Annihilation, and how information blooms from data to wisdom by facilitating the transformation of the subject as moral agent (at the Register of Determination), the self-as-manifest, which is “really” (i.e. at the Register of Intelligibility) the object of this transformation.
This is the nature of Submission:2 the recursive clarification of the self-as-manifest. It is falling towards the Light.
It is the flight of the Alone (Divine disclosure as object) to the Alone (the Divine as subject).
Total Submission
Submission is absolute only with respect to the Divine. Submission to a Pole is derivative, and possesses authority only insofar as the Pole faithfully and humbly discloses Him.
Let us take a look for a moment at Submission to the Divine, mediated through a Pole.
The Pole is necessarily integral as a locus of Divine manifestation and contains, therefore, expressions of the Sacred at each of the Four Registers.
For instance, in the context of the Tradition as Pole, we have the esoteric wisdom justifying its deepest pronouncements, we have inspiration and passion and choice calling the self to action, we have mechanisms and instruments, such as the Sacred Law and ritual activity to pattern and provide the substrate of activity, and finally we have lived activity, the actual infusion of the registers above with the matter and particularities of the self.
Each of these, while particular at each register, insofar as they’re determinate (i.e. Islam is not Christianity is not Daoism, the Shariah is not the Halakha, Islamic Salah is not Christian Prayer), nevertheless seeks to disclose the Divine at each of these registers in a way that is a faithful, and humble expression of the principles animating it.
In this fashion, each Tradition, conceived of as Pole, is self-contained, with countervailing aspects that each seek to balance out the others in such fashion so as to justify the whole.
It is not an aspect of a Tradition that functions as the Pole, but the Tradition itself, as a whole, with all its multifarious aspects, each of which is contingent on the others in such fashion so as to permit this disclosure.
This is why you cannot simply “pick and choose” congenial fragments from several Traditions like a “cafeteria perennialist” and assemble them according to private preference. This reverses the proper order of Initiation: here you do not submit your epistemology to ontology, but instead impose your distorted epistemology onto it.
This is insidious, a common pitfall of most “spiritualists” and perennialists. It offers the appetite and degraded self-as-manifest the illusion of universality.
One must find a Path, recognise that Path as total, and commit to it. The Real is whole, as are its greatest symbols: half-measures are therefore by definition failures.
It is simply for us to fall in love with the Light at the end of the slide, and allow ourselves to fall.
The Illuminated Heart
Earlier, we described the mechanism as it unfolds once a Pole is identified. But how is one to do this? What’s going on here?
We will approach this through a few different perspectives, which in their totality ought to give us some handle on the problem.
Criteria
Armed with all the architecture we’ve discerned so far in the Grammar of Disclosure, the Hierarchy of Being, the Ground of Virtue and associated work, we are now better placed to unearth what’s really going on here.
A candidate symbol possesses Polehood to the extent that it clearly discloses the principle it participates in, in the domain (i.e. context) that it is manifest in.
Clarity generally consists of:
Fidelity: the symbol genuinely discloses its Source, is a faithful representation of the Source
Humility: the symbol does not claim to be the Source, that is it does not absolutise itself and continues to point upwards unto the Divine
The question is: how does this Clarity become recognisable to a sincere but ultimately occluded and degraded interpreter?
We have to simply undertake reversion (epistemologically), that is, follow the emanation of the potentially disclosed principle up the Registers that comprise the Hierarchy of Being.
Intelligibility: Illumination
A Pole must clarify, illuminate, and render its context (the horizontal symbols participating in comparable potential principles) more intelligible. It is explanatory, and reveals, rather than obscures, the principles, structure, and causal dependencies governing its domain.
This disclosure of fundamental causality ought to unify multiplicity beneath a principle that genuinely accounts for it, producing coherence, consistency, explanatory depth, elegance, and invariance: that is, the structure underpinning that domain ought to be revealed.
The opposite of this is confusion or occlusion: contradiction, arbitrariness, conceptual proliferation.
Does the Pole allow us to see what Reality is? Is the Pole faithful? Is the Pole humble?Determination: Inspiration
A Pole must first instil, and second, order attention, desire, intent, and will. It must draw the self-as-manifest towards its telos, and sever its connection with appetite, fragmentation, vanity, and concealment.
This is not psychological, but sacred Inspiration. It imposes priorities and compels us to choose amongst them. These choices, and the intent they comprise, are what constitute our determination of our new selves-as-manifest. It is what constitutes our becoming.Does the Pole inspire will, determination, love, and longing for the Divine? Does it vivify, animate, bring one to life? Is the Pole sincere?
Mechanism: Utility
A Pole does not simply point the way and instil the desire to go there, but further provides disciplines, practices, habits, rituals, laws, methods, patterns, ideas, frameworks, and instruments that are of value for the being seeking to pursue the Sacred.
The Fourfold Path must be navigable, practicable, and itself intelligible at lower registers. It must, even in multiplicity, constitute a set of regularities, patterns, or mechanisms that render the journey to the Divine both feasible, and fruitful.
Does the Pole furnish us with the means for higher knowing? Is the Pole fruitful, practical, tractable and of use?Materiality: Embodiment
A Pole must survive incarnation. That is, there must exist a representation at the Register of Materiality that is evidently entirely faithful and humble, such that disclosure is fundamentally accessible.
Any given Quran (a material register symbol) is not The Quran (a determination register symbol): however, it is an evidently faithful and humble instance/representation of Divine Speech.
Similarly, a Saint may well be a Pole, but if this is not manifest in his adab (etiquette), if he is not evidently a kind, strong, compassionate, just, and loving person, then he cannot be a Saint.
The ability of a Pole to manifest the Divine through to the lowest registers is critical, since it renders it complete. The physical (and even imaginal) world of concreteness and multiplicity “exists” after all, and the Divine must be able to penetrate and disclose itself there, for if it did not, then it would be tantamount to absolutising the independence of materiality, a form of absolutisation.
Does the Pole bear stable and recognisable fruit in everyday life? Does the Pole act tangibly in ways that are consistent with the Sacred?
The fundamental principle here is simple, eternal, and austere:
The Light absolutely must shine, and it absolutely must shine all the way through.3
Therefore:
The Criteria are conjunctive and not compensatory (all of them must be true for a symbol to be a Pole)
Insight cannot redeem moral corruption
Efficiency cannot redeem meaninglessness
Inspiration cannot redeem incoherence
Critically, these criteria are the measure by which we evaluate the extent to which higher knowing has been undertaken, by which we are to evaluate ourselves, as well as other symbols.
“For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” — Luke 6:43-45
World-Anchoring
Recall that, in From Semantics to Reality, we considered the notion of World-Anchoring, which is, formally, semiotic and syntactic fidelity, the non-arbitrary constraint that the external, extant world imposes on admissible interpretations. When an interpretation is wrong, Reality itself resists it: prediction fails, action misfires, coordination breaks, and the interpretation can only be saved by endless ad hoc patches: the opposite of a stable, eternal principle which survives variation and multiplicity.
These criteria are subsumed by those above. World-Anchoring is now re-understood as the process by which Clarity is evaluated from below, i.e. from the perspective of the self-as-manifest. Reality will simply resist falsity at every register:
Intelligibility: contradiction, arbitrariness, incoherence, confusion
Determination: fragmentation of desire, lack of focus, concealment and insincerity, anhedonia, apathy
Mechanism: ineffectuality, incentive misalignment, sterility, bureaucracy, process burden
Materiality: hypocrisy, abuse, corruption, and meaningless pain
Finally, we are to assess symbols and their clarity in the context and register they exist in, since this will govern their telos.
It is precisely that domain (consisting of all the symbols with whom a given symbol has either horizontal or vertical relationships with) that will both determine and disclose their telos, and with it, furnish us with the standards by which that symbol is to be evaluated.
That is, each symbol by virtue of its:
horizontal or vertical relationships with other symbols (domain/ context)
manifestation at lower registers
Supplies us with its own standards. To maximally satisfy all these standards is to achieve Polehood.
It is important to note that, specifically for a conscious symbol, the satisfaction of all these criteria is essentially to undertake the journey up the Fourfold Path, i.e. to be Enlightened.
Moreover, notice that each of these four principles: Illumination, Inspiration, Utility, and Embodiment is ultimately the high-register principle of Clarity itself manifest at successively lower registers.
If Clarity is the principle underlying Virtue, which is, as discussed in Light and Shadow principally a Determination-Register being, then this is how virtue manifests at lower registers, namely as Inspiration (or Choice), Utility (or Effectiveness), and Embodiment (or Materiality).
Note: Finally, note that we are now in a position to refine or supersede the sketch criteria in Not Objectivity but Annihilation for how higher knowing is identified:
symbols can only disclose what intelligibly accounts for their being: that is, they must be explanatory, structural, and coherent
symbols must yield transformations of the self-as-manifest that deepen intelligibility, coherence, and orientation: that is, they must inspire one to activity, will, choice, and change
intelligibility or ascent without practice or re-integration into attention, intention, habit, and action fractures life: that is, they must be instrumentally useful or practical
symbols oriented correctly will disclose apprehensible harmony, fit, and beauty
In particular, we’ve here subsumed the first 3, but we will return to Beauty in the future in the context of our Aesthetics.
The Wayfarer
We finish with a comment on the disposition of the symbol seeking Clarity. What can we say about what must be necessary?
Let’s say you’re a seeker.
Firstly, there must exist the sincerity that must ground your virtue. It is impossible, after all, to truly transform the self-as-manifest if the self-as-is is concealed from oneself, by oneself.
Sincerity is what begets or seeds one’s primordial connection with the Inner Guru. This is Initiatic.
Secondly, there is the initial draw of the Divine, mediated by the dialogue of the Inner Guru and the recognised Outer Guru, that sets you down the spiral of recursive selfhood. This is the Invitation or Opening.
But let’s consider one turn of this spiral for the moment. This will necessarily involve firstly, the discovery of, and finally, the determination of the new self that the current self is meant to transform into. A new self that is meant to be closer to the self-as-is (i.e. participate more fully in the principles that underlie it) than you currently are.
Note: This is what we refer to as learning or growth at the lowest registers.
The discovery is the generation of possibility, and the determination is the imposition of form.
This is simply the alternating actions of Mercy and Wrath on the self: Mercy which loosens the self-as-manifest, permitting transformation, and Wrath, which hones in on a new self, fixing a target.
We will call Curiosity this specific manifestation of Mercy, i.e. upon the self-as-manifest with the purpose of transformation geared towards the Divine, undertaken with Integrity, i.e. persistent across register, space, and time.
Similarly, we will call Rigour this specific manifestation of Wrath undertaken with Integrity.
Curiosity is indispensable for transformation, but Rigour is indispensable for rectitude, lest you fall astray.
For instance, one must be careful not to be waylaid by false symbols that draw attention to themselves rather than beyond themselves. This is Absolutisation.
It is precisely an insufficient exercise of rigour that results in false Poles with all their projections, deleterious psychological and emotional dependencies, ungrounded ecstasy, disharmony, and confusion. Delusions and projections will seek to confirm the shadowy, and veiled aspects of our selves, they will affirm the lower self4, rather than inspire you to greater transformation.
Similarly, an insufficient exercise of curiosity results in stasis, and the abandonment of humility. In some ways, this can be even worse, insofar as it results, subtly, in an absolutisation of the self.
For Adam to grace God’s Hand, he must reach. To have any chance, though, he must also aim.
As Guenon did in his Initiation and Spiritual Realisation.
Submission belongs only to the Divine, and to the Outer Guru as conditional, derivative, and justifiable only via the Guru’s transparency to the Divine.
This line is the essence of what I’m trying to communicate here.
Consider modern LLMs.