The "inside out" of life: Plato's Forms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms Plato's later answer would be that men already know the Forms because they were in the world of Forms before birth. The mimes only recall these Forms to memory.[35] Science would certainly reject the unverifiable and in ancient times investigative men such as Aristotle mistrusted the whole idea. The comedian Aristophanes wrote a play, the Clouds, poking fun of Socrates with his head in the clouds. 


Elena: it's very interesting that Plato would call them "forms" and that Aristotle would not "understand" what he meant, as if his "consciousness" were already sufficiently embedded in the world of matter to conceive of Plato's "Forms". I would not call them forms but what gives substance to forms, convinced of the materiality of forms in the sphere of Earth life but that is probably just my limitation. In other visions there's the idea of the archetype which resembles the reality of such origins but "forms" is even more explicit. Why would Plato call them FORMS? It is a lovely way to put it for then when they incarnate in forms in the realm of matter that we think as "reality" they take what we call "forms"- But then, all of death would, in my understanding be "the form" of life or what gives life to life, not the womb, the idea of a womb is different, it's more like "the other side of the coin" of life than a womb. It is so powerful that it inspires all of life and yet life is just the tip of the iceberg, the "flowering" of "all that".  


Nothing in this world exists without those "forms" but they are also like the thread of a sweater while "life" would be the weaving of the sweater and each individual human being threads of the sweater. As if "forms" were the "cotton", life the needles and the sweater itself, each human being in an ongoing process of regeneration. When I say "life" I mean each "act" of man. Human being's acts are in themselves like needles that through the human being experiencing them and being "transformed" in the experience, returned the "effect" "back" to the realm of original "forms" reaffirming their "reality" and "realized" his or herself when the experience is conscious. 


There is an ongoing feedback from realm to realm, a permanent struggle to become. When the force of one realm penetrates another for example in Art, we call it a "masterpiece"! What is also clear is that if we think of the time and space in which we "normally" live in, in that realm it is like being inside an atomic bomb in which one's own self is the nucleus. The "energy" that "inspires" it is almost unbearable because it is so powerful. In relation to that realm, this one exists at an extremely slow pace. Rodney Collin makes reference to those realms in his Theory of Celestial Influence and what is so powerful about that book is that it is able to put all those phenomenon within a "physical" framework. I understand the scientific exactitude can be much contested but he was aware of that and still pursued his methodology.  


Is that realm better? The question for me is not whether it is better or not as one wouldn't ask if one could choose between the inside of the dress or the outside to be able to wear it. "Death" or that realm of "life" belongs to life in exactly the same relationship and one cannot choose one and leave the other out but when one is able to "be" in that realm for sometime, although "our" side of life is obviously "inspired" or "made possible" by that side, what becomes clear is that by "actualizing" one's presence in each act, life "regenerates" itself. The horror of our situation today is that most human acts are actually acting against the actualization of that realm in this realm as if instead of regenerating, human beings were "falling" endlessly from the tree of life, like leaves in autumn who did not have the strength to hold themselves even throughout the summer basically because "acts" are not "inspired" by life, intentionally and consciously performed to preserve and reproduce it but were simply unconscious "reactions" to "experience" with "no one" there enough to "hold" the experience and see it through. A process that results in people being "spent" like game money rather than "investing" our selves in our own "life".  


Although I understand and know what I am saying, I am usually in a state in which that "lifelessness" is also happening to me most of the time but contrary to the way that happened in the cult in which the deterioration was paramount, what I am finding is that "activity" itself serves to "recreate" the self and different activities, recreate it in different "realms". Steiner has powerfully presented the sphere of such action through his waldorf education in which the effects of painting with different materials matters, sculpting again, has a different effect to painting and physical exercise as much as any other activity have each their own power and effect. Understanding this organically, is a huge step that I am barely tickling but it is about being able to conceive of "life" in itself as the medium for realization. The understanding that people do not have to hide in cults or churches to develop themselves but on the contrary, "helping" life be what it is, will help men become more fully human. While Steiner offered us the tools to not destroy children's essences, we should be able to use those same tools to heal severely hurt false personalities always understanding that false personality is not "evil" but a pathological development of essence. In Psychology, what Reich termed, the "character armor".


I realize this may not sound very clear but one of the main difficulties is that it's also about very obvious things such as the fact that the work a man or a woman does, is in itself the means for them to realize themselves. Today "work" is done to make money and survive but when, besides being the means for economic support, work becomes the medium through which individuals develop their creative self, then we'll understand that "life" is in itself the means for "enlightenment" no matter how far in that enlightenment a man or a woman "reaches". The point is not whether all men become "enlightened" in the next week but that all men work in the sphere of their chosen development and can activate not only their physical self and make "products" but their ontological self and fill culture with life. THAT ACT is what regenerates the substance of life: the human being. I suppose we would have to reformulate our understanding of the human process and what it is meant for. What is the aim of life? Presently there doesn't seem to be a "formulation" that men are willing to adhere to with everyone just pulling towards their own justification without actually having a "formula" to justify, which, interesting as that sounds, leaves us without "aim". This lack of "aim" is another interesting question and even more that these words should come up when we're talking about The Theory of Forms. I'll expand on this later. We are crossing the Age of Desolation but there is light at the other side of this tunnel. "Light", that is: "love".
*