Monday 29 August 2016

The way of the Fool

The spiritual path of the Fool is well known but seldom trodden, despite that it is very simple indeed.

It is simply the path of living by intuition, including justifying by intuition.

This is not the same as living by instinct. Instinct is the animalic appetites. Intuition is the thinking of the primordial primary self, which is an eternal and divine reality.

Intuition errs but repents easily. It is infallible over the long span (extending beyond death) but may be unpleasant and cause suffering here and now ~ especially the suffering of being ridiculed, despised or pitied -- which is why it is seldom pursued.

And nobody pursues it wholly or fully. In many ways Socrates (the real Socrates, not the charater in Plato's later works) was a fool, and so was Jesus - but both were also intellectuals of knowledge and brilliance; and used arguments framed rationally.

But in extremis, at the bottom line, the Fool abandons argument and sticks to intuition -- in other words, the primacy of inner knowing. Socrates called it his divine daemon or genius.


3 comments:

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

This post fit right into a massive network of synchronicities, documented here.

David Balfour said...

I wish to be a fool! I feel intuition deeply but also tend to abandon it in the face of the worlds scorn or skepticism...but deep down, in a place beyond the intellectual squabbles it warms my heart and lights my way like a beacon calling out to be followed...a calm, littld inner voice! This post has reminded me to listen to it more often. Thanks Bruce :-)

Bruce Charlton said...

@Wm. I suppose the Fool would expect synchronicities, and would understand their significance intuitively rather than rationally.

@David. It is indeed hard to follow through, which is why examples from real life are unusual. But David Icke is perhaps a modern exemplar.