{"id":602,"date":"2010-07-05T17:01:43","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T21:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=602"},"modified":"2019-07-05T04:02:31","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T08:02:31","slug":"the-metaphysics-of-imperfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=602","title":{"rendered":"The Metaphysics of Imperfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

One’s circle is never closed, one’s past is not the future, one’s work is never finished …<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\u2026 the primitive craftsman leaves in his work something unfinished, and that the primitive mother dislikes to hear the beauty of her child unduly praised; it is “tempting Providence”, and may lead to disaster. That seems like nonsense to us. And yet there survives in our vernacular the explanation for the principle involved: the craftsman leaves something undone in his work for the same reason that the word “to be finished” may mean either to be perfected or to die. Perfection is death: when a thing has been altogether fulfilled, when all has been done that was to be done, potentiality altogether reduced to act, that is the end: those whom the gods love die young. This is not what the workman desired for his work, nor the mother for her child. It can very well be that the workman or the peasant mother is no longer conscious of the meaning of a precaution that may have become a mere superstition; but assuredly we, who call ourselves anthropologists, should have been able to understand what was the idea which alone could have given rise to such a superstition, and ought to have asked ourselves whether or not the peasant by his actual observance of the precaution is not defending himself from a dangerous suggestion to which we, who have made of our existence a more tightly closed system, may be immune. ~ Ananda Commaraswamy<\/strong>, “Primitive Mentality”<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This, too, is the practice of the metaphysician. No matter how deep is his understanding or broad his knowledge, there is always something undone: something else to learn, another connection to see, another experience to integrate. The idea that someone can believe in a closed system that encompasses all knowledge, or that the repetition of old practices is totally sufficient, or that the recovery of old beliefs and rites will be the guide for the future are all temptations that too often \u201clead to disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n

Guenon points out that death comes when all one\u2019s possibilities have been exhausted. Even if that death is not physical, it will be spiritual. For as soon as we believe we are spiritually perfect, then we become spiritually dead, no longer able to grow, thrive or pass on an inheritance. The metaphysician is convinced that the Absolute is Infinite, and thus is in no danger of running out of possibilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One’s circle is never closed, one’s past is not the future, one’s work is never finished … \u2026 the primitive craftsman leaves in his work something unfinished, and that the primitive mother dislikes to hear the beauty of her child unduly praised; it is “tempting Providence”, and may lead to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ananda-coomaraswamy","category-metaphysics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}