- “Life is flux” still people have continued to resist change. If we try identifying the First Cause of creation – that element or energy that set all of creation in motion and sustained it – then we would understand flux.
- Nothing is permanent and the observable world is in a constant state of change and is was the cause of human suffering: people insist on permanence in a world of impermanence.
- One must accept the essential nature of life and detach themselves from the false idea that anything they held to could be permanent.
- In a different perspective, one could also attach one's self to anything, as long as one understood it was fleeting.
- First one encourages active engagement while suggesting enlightened disinterest. It teaches a path of gradual detachment from the mutability of the world leading to the understanding and recognition that one could live one's life fully without craving for what one lacked, fearing what one might lose, or mourning what was past.
- Second perspective encourages people to embrace change as the fundamental essence of life and live in it, even celebrate it, with total awareness of what one had and would inevitably be lost.
- Although the central focus of the two perspectives differs, their goal is the same: to awaken those who cling to what they know through fear and ignorance and allow for their movement toward a higher, more vibrant understanding of life.
- Interestingly, though not surprisingly, this same focus would emphasized in the importance of the process of self-actualization – comparable to the state of awareness encouraged by above two perspectives – by which one could let go of childish fears and limitations to live a more mature and fulfilling life.
- Simply an astute observer of the human condition and one can recognize that most people were, in fact, asleep in their lives –- surrendering their own judgments to popular opinion and betraying their dreams in the interests of others.
- People have to be forced to confront their own spiritual laziness and emotional lethargy.
- Life is constant change, but it seems that complete awareness is existence in the form of simply paying attention and remaining critical of other people's definitions or declarations of truth.
- "You can't step into the same river twice" ......"In the same river we both step and do not step, we are and are not". The world is in a constant state of change and, while one may step from the banks into the bed of a river one has walked in before, the waters flowing over one's feet will never be the same waters that flowed even a moment before. In the same way, moment to moment, life is in a constant state of change and, one can never even count on the certainty of being able to walk into the same room of one's house one moment as one might the next.
- Life is flux and that the majority of humanity does not realise this. People suffer constantly, because they continually insist on pleasurable aspects of life as permanent states when the nature of these things was fleeting. People want to hold on to loved ones, to jobs, to objects, to homes as though they would last forever when there was no way, owing to the nature of these things, that such could ever be. Acceptance of the Four Noble Truths (establishing that life is suffering caused by craving) and a path of detachment – the Eightfold Path – a spiritual discipline which allowed for gradual detachment from the ignorance which held one captive to the illusion of permanence in life is hence fruitful.
- The significant similarity between the two perspectives was that first one advocates no such detachment but intended the same goal. One could fully embrace all of the mutable aspects of life and enjoy them fully; just as long as one understood that they were, in fact, ephemeral and could not last. In the same way, second perspective postulates that one could enjoy whatever they pleased in life as long as they realised it was ephemeral and without lasting meaning.
- The basic truth that life is constant flux as expressed in the statement above is that the very nature of life is change; change is not an aspect of life but life itself and to resist change is to resist life. Also He there is a natural force, associated with transformative fire, which moved all things in rapid succession according to their nature and this was known as the logos.
- The logos , which infuses all things (but did not create the world nor could bring about its end), operates naturally as 'change', but humans resist this natural flow and, because of this, cause themselves and others to suffer owing to their ignorance of the nature of life. To the Logos all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, others to be just.
- In the light of awareness, all things were good because all things were natural. People were born, lived, and died, and after such a death, their loved ones mourned and called the event a tragedy, but , it was simply the progression of life and a natural part of the human condition. The grief and strife which accompanied a death are, part of the natural operation of the logos because he defined conflict and strife as transformative agencies.
Life is Conflict
- Conflict is necessary for the perpetuation of life. One cannot grow without striving toward some sort of goal, and strife is necessary in this process. Conflict is a vital force in maintaining the world.
- We must recognise that war is common and strife is justice, and all things happen according to strife and necessity.
- War is the father of all and king of all, who manifested some as gods and some as men, who made some slaves and some freemen.
- The conflict of opposites is absolutely essential for the continuation of life as understood in the change of the seasons, night turning to day, young people growing old, and even in the living giving way to death. Everything is in constant motion, One only had to recognise and accept that fact in order to live in it. We must accept and live in a world of constant change when one most of us desire permanence.
- This emphasises the vital importance of accepting change as a transformative possibility. People fear change because they were afraid of the unknown and that this includes a fear of loss and abandonment.
- People feared change, primarily, because they wanted to avoid the kind of conflict associated with growth.
- Every one of us gladly turns away from our problems; if possible, they must not be mentioned, or, better still, their existence be denied. We wish to make our lives simple, certain, and smooth, and for that reason problems are taboo. We want to have certainties and no doubts - results and no experiments - without even seeing that certainties can arise only through doubt and results only through experiment.
- Human neuroses arose from the individual's desire to remain childlike and that a part of that was the avoidance of conflict.
- Something in us wishes to remain a child, to be unconscious or, at most, conscious only of the ego, to reject everything strange; or else subject it to our will; to do nothing, or else indulge our own craving for pleasure or power.
- The above two perspectives , of course, phrase concepts in the same way but both seem to portray well the human tendency to cling to the past and refuse to let go of what one knows and is comfortable with. In doing so, both claim, one only causes oneself more suffering by refusing to let go of something one was never promised they could hold to begin with.
- Life is fleeting and changeable. The brevity of life, in fact, is central to the very concept of philosophy in every culture the world over. It is interesting, however, to consider the two perspectives and recognise the continuity of the human experience.
- Both advocate for an acceptance of life as it is while warning against easy answers or comfortable escapes which allow one to avoid suffering without acknowledging its causes. It can be referred to as a state of sleepwalking through life or defined as underlying ignorance or identified as the desire to remain always in a childlike state in which no risks are taken because none are expected. In choosing to remain asleep, ignorant, or childlike, one seeks to resolve the problems of conflict and suffering but, this choice only stifles the individual.
- The serious problems in life are never fully solved. If ever they should appear to be so, it is a sure sign that something has been lost.
- What is suggested here is a loss of transformative possibilities by clinging to the known instead of letting go and moving forward with the currents of life. As long as one clings to past understandings and personal or cultural traditions of how things must remain, one cannot experience the kind of growth which comes with change and which, in fact, defines all living things as they are moved through the various stages of life with or without their consent. In this, what is simply being stated is that life is flux.
What do you choose then. Active Engagement Or Enlightened Disinterest.