https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=YPXCXgaQm44
Welcome back everyone for another instance of Philosophical Fellowship. Again, our thanks to the inspiration from Rand LaHave who initiated this as a way of reviving ancient practices for the group Cultivation of Wisdom. So today, we’re going to do a reading from John Scott as Regina. And just to tell you a little bit about him, I’m going to be doing the reading from this wonderful anthology, The Enlightened Mind by Stephen Mitchell and John Scott as Regina, the dates given for him around 810 to 877. He’s around at the time of Charlemagne. He gains considerable notoriety. He publishes a really important book in the history of philosophy called the Parafusion or the Division of Nature, which is, you know, a high watermark in neoplonic Christianity, but unfortunately it was sort of ahead of its time or out of its time, and he seems to be have been driven from court, and then declared a heretic in absentia at some point, which means he’s probably telling the truth. So, he, he’s a very mysterious guy we don’t know much about him, other than from his work, and a little bit of history around him. But of course the history is has been colored against him. A couple of really good books on him is the one by Dedric Carabine, John Scott as Regina, and I recommend to start this one first see how thin it is a very thin. This one is not not not so thin. And this, I definitely would not recommend starting with this. If you get into if you really get into the carabine book, and you and you want to read the Parafusion, then this is by Sergey Shushkov called Being in Creation in the Theology of John Scott as Regina, and this is sort of the more most cutting edge academic scholastic work on it. Of course, I, most of you probably won’t want to do that, but this might be a good book if you want to get a little bit more into. Why do I like him? For me, he is going to figure, and this may strike some of you as a bit odd, he’s going to figure in after Socrates, because for me he represents the culmination of the whole project of dialectic into dialogos. Basically, to put it in a nutshell, John Scott, this is why he’s often called the hagel of the ninth century. John Scott as Regina thought that dialectic was not only a process we do individually in contemplation and collectively in discourse, it’s also the way reality unfolds. So dialectic works, theologos works, because the dialectic within us and between us participates in the dialectic of reality itself, which he understands as God. And so the idea that dialectic is a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is not only a process that is that we live in and in and we live in in and in and in and in and in and in all of this all of this is a little bit of a counter a counter jab and defend is a little bit of a counter a counter jab and defend I want to label him the patron saint of dialectic, even though he was declared a heretic. But he’s definitely, I think, the epitome of Platonic Christianity. But I think the things he’s saying here also prefigures somebody we’ve done, we’ve read before, which is Spinoza, profoundly so. And you’ll see when I do the reading, if you remember what we did about Spinoza. Okay, so that was the reason for the choice. And that’s a bit of the background. Any questions about that before we proceed? Okay, so we will take a couple minutes. And if you wish, you can turn your camera off and your mic off, and then I’ll come back. And for those of you who are watching this, please be patient, because what we’ll be doing is we’ll be doing a basic mindfulness practice, finding the core four, finding your center, finding your root, finding your flow, finding your focus. If you’re unfamiliar with that, please go to my Meditating with John Vervaeke series and go to the lessons playlist, and you’ll find the first four lessons are about finding your center, finding your root, finding your flow, finding your focus. We’ll do that. We’ll come back. And then remember what happens is I’ll do the reading. And the point is when I’m reading, I’ll read slowly with pauses. And you’re supposed to be reading sort of aloud in your mind along with me. Read in a participatory fashion. We get to the end, and then I will pick a phrase and we’ll do the ruminatio. We’ll sort of repeat it, chant like, and we’ll go in sequence. And let’s do, let’s pick a number. Now I’ll be one. Tracy, you can be two. Kira, you’re three, and Rob, you’re four. Is that okay? One, two, three, four. I’m one. Tracy’s two. Kira’s three. Rob’s four. We’ll do the ruminatio. And yes, thank you. And then what we’ll do is we do the next phase. And let’s try and we slipped a little tiny bit when I looked at the video. The next phase where we’re doing the precious speaking, right, we want to try and keep it to one or two sentences in our initial, right, because we sort of got into a little bit more. But initial, because this is an important practice. This is part of trying to get as much of the nonverbal into the verbal. And if we start unpacking the verbal, we’re leaving all the perspectival and participatory stuff behind. So what you’re trying to do is convey as much as you can by saying as little as you can. Okay. And so you’re after, you’re almost, you’re almost trying to speak as insightfully as possible. Don’t force it. But the thing you are doing, the thing that is doing the discipline, saying as much as possible. And then we’ll move into the phase, the next phase, not the final phase, the next phase in which we can speak more at length, usually about four to five sentences. And we circle and remember, don’t, you’re not, you’re not right where you’re not speaking monologue. You’re trying to jazz with other people pick up and resonate with what they’re saying and weave with them. And what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to presence, Regina, get a sense of what he we’re trying to create a place in which we’re presencing his perspective, mutually between us and to each one of us. And then we can, and then we go into the end where we take away and more free flow form kind of discussion. Are we, are we clear about that. So, finding the core for the room and audio, the chanting. Right. And then the precious speaking, conveying as much by saying as little as you can. Right. And then, right, the conversation, the more conversational, try to keep that to four or five sentences jazzing with other people. And then takeaways and, and then more free flow form kind of discussion. Okay. Excellent. All right, so I’m going to turn my camera and mic off will be a couple of minutes or so, but and do your core for the room. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So everyone, when you’re ready, please begin to come back gently. Okay, here’s the reading from Regina, Regina. We ought not to understand God and creation as two things distinct from each other, but as one in the same. For both the creature by subsisting is in God, and God, by manifesting himself in a marvelous in ineffable manner creates himself in the creature. The invisible, making himself visible. And the incomprehensible comprehensible. The hidden revealed, and the unknown known. And what is without form and species formed and specific. And the super essential essential. And the supernatural. Natural. The simple composite, and the accident free subject to accident. And the infinite finite. And the uncircumcised circumscribed. And the super temporal temporal. And the creator of all things created in all things. And the maker of all things made in all things. And the eternal begins to be. And the immobile, he moves into all things and becomes all things in all things. So the phrase for ruminati Oh, that I’ve chosen is the creator of all things created all things. I’ll begin the creator of all things. The creative in all things, the creator of all things. The creator of all things, created in all things. Of all things, created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. Creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. The creator of all things created in all things. Creator of all things created in all things. Let’s sit in silence and let resonate with us. Try to do something like an electio divina. Try to imagine that, not in your head, but imagineally try and enact that. Imagineally, try and enact the imagery till you feel enveloped and engaged by it. Now let’s begin the precious speaking. It’s like a conversation that I make that also makes me. I feel my heart slowing down and opening up with the creative in me. The sum is greater than all of the parts. In the parts. Is the greatness of everything. Feeling a resonance between all things. Sense of belonging. Everything and nothing all in one. You know, there’s the kind of powerful, quiet that brings people together. It’s very warm and dark. I’m thinking of the final line, immobile, he moves into all things. I feel that one with every object in my room too, right now. Light and dark. Light and dark, everything, nothing. Creator. And there’s a there’s like a life between animals and like buildings that that like we forget about. But, but that feels very, very real to this person. Now let’s move into precious conversation. Try to do lectio as you’re speaking, picking up on other people. So now four or five sentences. I’m very impressed by how we can we can exemplify what are you saying about reality in the way we’re communicating with each other. Like the line between the two is blurring for me. Similar for me, a blurring line and a sense that created in all things is like a precious. Diamond gem that I have in me, that you have in you, that Kira has in her, that Rob has in him. And that is also in all these things around me. I’m feeling that blurred line between the creator and the created. The things that I create and the ways that I am being created. Yeah, it’s the stillness and the energy when Kira was saying that it was like, like this rush of energy coming out of the ocean or something and water just flying up. But it wasn’t from outside. It was like from within. So. At the core of the dialectic is this notion of logos. It’s both the speaking and the gathering together, so things belong together. And I can’t quite say it, but the way what that’s happening between us, but it’s also what’s happening in the world. It feels ineffable, but I also. Sense of my core, I keep feeling it here in my heart right here. This. Preciousness and a real serenity. And I keep going back to the idea of it create it is created in me that logos is in me in all of us. I also had the word ineffable in me, all of the dichotomies he listed and. Me as a human being trying to mediate the dichotomies and the. angst of trying to mediate. Yeah, I just keep coming back to I really. I feel like it’s an honor for him to have talked about how intelligible things were within this this miracle that he’s describing and he’s not. he’s not lost in some kind of paradox like he’s really no confidence is the wrong word, but he’s very secure in what he’s saying. Which is like a blessing to hear. When Rob did that. When Rob did that, it was a shift and that I felt you know the presence of the perspective of a Regina. he’s joining us in the deal logos. Thank you, Rob. The appreciation for his voice, you made it you made it palpable to me. I got a lot when Rob said paradox. There was a it’s like oh yes and paradoxes usually cause the angst that Kira was talking about and yet the way that that paragraph was written didn’t bring a sense of angst with the paradoxes it was discussing. brought a sense of it’s okay they all go together. I’m. noticing. How this text is transforming me. The. The angst the paradox my the relationship between them the. The serenity you i’ve heard described of him. Regina. Something to aspire to. Something to aspire to. Yeah, you can really you can feel the spaciousness when Kira was saying that almost like kind of feeling off of what everyone’s been saying the last few moments in that he is trying to contain so much, but it is contained it’s not it’s not deadly or unfathomable. The way something that might have been so personal to other people would be when they wrote about it. Really resonating with. The transformation that Tracy and here. Bringing out almost the healing aspects of this. Right, the way all the tensions that terrace and park have been flipped and resolved into something else. That was beautiful appreciate that a lot. All four of us in the last round been using our hands. And there’s that we’re all making circular motions with our hands, and I think that circular motion is is a way of somehow expressing this in effort, then the ineffability of you know. It chaos doesn’t have to be chaos, it can be magnificent and, as I said earlier, I still keep feeling like oh we’re all together and everything not just one thing. But the table the chair it all somehow for this moment makes sense. I am. I think, Regina the thing that I feel like he’s here and he’s like i’m gonna expand your heart. I always I always think of the Grinch when my heart is expanding. And I keep thinking of the word hold on, which is like a whole like it’s the thing that is both a whole apart and a whole at the same time and that’s what that’s what erudition seems to be trying to involve. My experience. yeah I like how how personal we’re all connecting to this and then also how he was talking about like mathematical ideas and almost cultural ideas and that part is not alienating nor is it very central even to the to what’s at least present thing right now. yeah that’s good rob. The sense of all of those levels also being brought together yeah there’s a playful presence that’s a Regina here. non alienating I really like that one. Because within the context of the exit nothing is left out. and it’s it’s beautifully comforting but it’s also it’s not just comforting. it’s a truth that I need to remember. I have a place here, we all do. I’m aware of like a laugh. The the of the dichotomies the paradoxes the like somehow I get this sense of Argentina kind of having a sense of the I need to remember. I have a place here, we all do. I’m aware of like a laughter of the. The the of the dichotomies the paradoxes the like somehow I get this sense of Argentina kind of having a sense of humor about. yeah about all of it. You gotta take you gotta take it all. yeah the the. The the warmth in in his thought is is so subtle it’s the playfulness is so. there it’s European but it’s not on the nose it’s really interesting yeah. And there’s almost no anger, now that i’m reflecting on kind of like the emotional layering of what he was doing there. yeah that’s fantastic that’s really. The coherence without the waste, but with the the grandeur is like how do you do that so well that’s great. I like that, the way this is happening where the way we’re presenting him. His serious play is laughter, but the grandeur and also the graciousness of his vision. makes me think of you know that the old phrase of the you know the company of the Saints, so if he’s the same patron saint of dialectic crafts what he’s keeping company with us right now. I really like the patron saint of dialectic that’s an excellent. I know we’re supposed to stick with the subject, but it felt like he were reading spinosa. yeah yeah. And the playfulness as a Kira and Rob both mentioned that well as you were reading it, I was thinking this is the exact kind of thing I would have written on my wall. That I can play with every day. I had the similar thing of I wanted to find that and I was like that that’s something that I want to read on a regular basis, because there’s. Just something for my mind to noodle on in terms of all or nothing black and white. Everything and nothing those. All of those things for our things that my mind feels a need to contemplate. yeah it is interesting how how that you could contemplate all those different things and every day they’d be different probably depending on what you had done the week before, or who you would talk to or. yeah they’re all and they’re all very relatable and they’re all very interesting and I think that’s the thing that I would have to read on a regular basis. yeah and they’re all and they’re all very relatable they’re not. Like weird or particularly artistic where you go I don’t like that. And that was it is really fun to think about to it has this lasting funness. In it as well yeah. Very interesting I never thought about this person in this way. So that’s where it was almost moving that way naturally let’s start moving into takeaway and more free form discussion, so now we don’t have to follow the order anymore, we can just speak as we wish. So I was very. very impressed by. How quickly the resonance occurred in the end, the end the presencing of his voice and that sort of the playfulness of his spirit between us and within us, I that was really powerful I really. very, very. Like I had this phrase. I said at the beginning, like the patron saint of dialectic and it meant something to me, but now it means something much more to me having enacted it rather than spoken about it, so thank you all of you for that. I can’t figure out why he was called a heretic. Maybe I need to read more. Because he. Like Spinoza. Because a Regina’s argument was God cannot create beyond himself, because nothing can exist beyond God, so all of God’s creation is also God’s self creation and it’s got self realization. And that went again I think I was going to read it again, but I think it’s a very interesting passage, I think it’s a very interesting passage, I think it’s a very interesting passage, I think it’s a very interesting passage. Is also God’s self creation and it’s got self realization and that went again a very much more standard two worlds model of creation. But, as you for for saw Tracy that’s very much Spinoza the nature natural natural data and nature natural nature nature nature being nature is very much in the same thing same line. The very first as we were going through the. The recitation the recitation of it and that line, though, the thing that kept coming into my head was am I the creator am I the created. You know, like in just in terms of the participant, you know the the participation in life and how those things unfold and. There’s an interesting sensation i’m having, which is a sense of. Stillness and i’m not comfortable with stillness. Like why am I so uncomfortable and there’s voices like it’s still don’t like that. Kira has this way about her, she says the things I feel. Yes, here. I feel that stillness to. You both feel this illness but there’s an ambivalence towards it is that is that what i’m understanding correctly. I would say it’s a stillness it’s a bit it’s a. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a. Is that is that what i’m understanding correctly. And I would say it’s a stillness it’s a but it’s a I don’t know what this like sort of a foreign feel like like. An unfamiliar feeling more so than an ambivalence. For me it’s because I so accustomed to chaos that I just when it’s goes quiet in my head i’m like what where have they all gone where are all the voices. The brain the brain tends to prefer predictable on happiness rather than unpredictable happiness. Yes, brilliant. Well, there’s a dangerous like double edge to peace right if you start to trust peace, you can just get burned twice as hard so feeling really comfortable in something unfamiliar. Can be dangerous like I don’t think it would be with ancient philosophy, but. It out in the wild, maybe if you were a bear or a. cheetah or something. yeah i’m getting too too sleepy here. The. yeah that the. there’s a there’s a warning throughout all of Buddhism. To not not not pursue a piece that’s a contentedness. But rather, yes, the contentedness of cabbages you want you want a piece that’s deeply perspicacious and participatory that’s not spiritual bypassing or self indulgence. That’s why it was, I think it was important that Rob emphasized the grandeur of the vision in conjunction with the peace and the playfulness I think you have all of those together, I think that’s a more appropriate framing of what Regina is trying to bring us into. The john is you’re saying that the thing that was coming to mind is like. This sense of trying to hold all of those you know all of those different pieces at the same time, and that that goes back to what he was writing about his boat, you know it’s the. yeah yeah. And. Figuring out how to be a being that is you know mediating all of these different pieces. Like that’s what I continue to be kind of. feel like i’m being shown through this process. Yes, I think that’s a great point. This. process. date for eph를 yes, Heidegger said De</fontrints we are the beings who being is in question.</font hardeners said dasein we are the beings who’s being is in question.</i.</i。 vamos sure </u Russell Shah understood it very well. For example Halloween I actually don’t know why we still want To here sort of kind of comes back into the fabric of the concept of always having the the creator and the created at the same time is especially resonant for me. And I understand Rob’s declaration that it’s a grandeur. I mean, that was an enormous paragraph because it encompassed everything. But at the same time, the idea that there is this created, and again, I go back to my heart, there’s a tremendous amount of peace in that. I don’t think it’s a sort of cabbage type piece. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I want to go back to what Kira is saying about mediating, because I really struggled with that stuff. I, you know, I probably will write that paragraph out and put it on my wall with my favorite quotes. There was something quite William Blake-ish about it too. I was feeling. Yeah, to see a world in a grain of sand. Yes, exactly. So I don’t really know where else I’m going with that, but I’m feeling that there was so much and it was so well written. What was he writing in English? I believe he probably would have written this in Latin. He was the first person to translate Dionysus into Latin. He was the person that brought Dionysus, basically, I think, the Byzantine world into the Latin West. I think Epicurus too, some of his quotes are from him. Yeah, and some of his Latin translations are from him. All right. So that so there’s a direct line, right. There’s a line that goes from Platinus through Proclus and Damascus into Dionysus and then to Erigenus. He is directly within the Neoplatonic tradition. Wow. Okay. It was a very poetic excerpt, John. I don’t want to mislead you. I mean, reading the Persevillian is written dialogue form, by the way. Right. Right. But it’s not a beach read. You got to read it the way you read Spinoza’s epic. You have to read it very slowly, very ponderously. But it always has that lyrical capacity to it. And you see this from Platinus on where you get this mixture of argumentation or very rigorous conceptual work that’s being paired with very lyrical, evocative prose. And there seem so there again, they’re never trying to just inform you or persuade you. They’re trying to transform you and get you to participate in a transformation. Do you think the lyricism comes from the writers’ attempt to make it memorable? It’s probably, there’s probably a mnemonic dimension in there. He’s trying to make it memorable. I think he is also very, very clear throughout his attitude is not one of hubris. It’s one who’s on the horizon. And he knows he’s on the horizon of intelligibility. And he’s always trying to speak back into what we can confirm and make sense of and forward to what transcends us and what cannot be got what cannot be captured in our words, but only in our sort of full being participation. And that’s always, and that’s how Fisher defines wonder, is to place yourself on the horizon of intelligibility and be able to speak in both directions at the same time. The thing that keeps going through my head is, you know, the idea that being in relationship with other people, I am reflecting back. I’m reflecting other people they are reflecting back to me in this line of the creator of all things created and all things that that horizon of like there’s the things that I’m acting out that I don’t know that I’m acting out until somebody else is yours and back, you know, until until somebody is mirroring them back to me, and then trying to make sense of. And trying to make sense of, of what’s happening, you know, and like, trying to, you know, in the, in the process in our in relationship of finding the language to describe what are we doing. That that we don’t necessarily know we’re doing, and how to, you know, it’s like, okay, that’s what we did. How are we going to do it going forward. All those pieces. That’s what kept getting evoked in me. We have this phrase that captures both of those at the same time, we have the phrase coming to terms with. Yeah. We’re coming to terms, and we’re also coming to terms. Right. We’re coming up with terms, and we’re also accommodating to a reality that’s putting a demand on us coming to terms, which is really interesting because focus also uses the idea of terms in order trying to explain his metaphysics. Right. When he’s invoking creation he’s invoking something inherently dialectical itself. Because creation is a dialectic of emergence out of no thingness and emanation from the one. Right. And so, it’s both always emergence and emanation like this. And then what you’re looking at there’s an aspect in which it’s emerging and and coming into self organization. And there’s an aspect in which all of the constraints of everything else are emanating into it. All creation is inherently a dialectic of emergence and emanation. So it’s not only that there’s a dialectic between the creator and the creative. There’s also a dialectic within creation itself. Yeah, that was so interesting when Kira said that it made me kind of realize that that he wasn’t just making a claim on reality of like, Oh, don’t forget the bigs and the small and the smalls and the big. But he’s saying like there’s this push and pull. Yep, that is the relationship between like the certain and the infinite. That will keep informing each other, like, perpetually. And so, within the context of our small circle here, I’m realizing, especially as Kira was just saying what she said, that I only get to discover what’s created in me by expressing and listening to you showing what’s created in you. Mm hmm. That’s why the metaphor of resonance kept coming up for me throughout all of it. So, sort of this kind of it’s resolving and it’s resonance and it’s very powerful. Before I forget, I want to just emphasize one thing, or not emphasize, remind you, Guy Sandstock has also recorded a couple of philosophical fellowships on his channel. You might want to take a look at. Yeah, cool. The thing I was just thinking about was, you know, this is part of the bigger like wisdom journey type thing. And part of, you know, the phrase, you can’t keep what you don’t give away like you have to give it away to keep it like it’s in the process of like giving away the wisdom, you know, the like explaining what you’ve learned to other people that you, you learn what it is that you actually know, you know, that you’ve actually know. And then you have people who you know that then you have the situation of somebody mirroring back to you of like, well, you’re not doing that. And so, and, and the, you know, that that constant evolution process of becoming. Yeah. And also that it’s in the sharing of these experiences that we get to experience the joy of them. I can enjoy them by myself I can enjoy reading a book by myself or paragraph, but I don’t get to actually feel the joy of it until I’m sharing it and hearing it from you and vice versa. The two things you that you like what curious and what traces that all of a sudden it’s harkening back to the originator of this which is the Socrates. Right. And that is best is best learning is when he’s teaching and his best answering is when he’s questioning and engaging in the joy with other people and the serious play with other people. Yeah, very much, very much. Wow, that’s very cool. That notion of the midwife. Yeah, we’re midwife we’re being midwives. Being midwives. Yeah, yeah. Helping each other become and that’s through, like, you know, teaching each other the languages that we know and teaching the. Yeah. Yeah. Bringing the different pieces in. Okay, I’m going to need to start wrapping it up. So, any final thoughts or word from any or all of you or each of you. I’m going to write it down and put it on my wall john that that paragraph I loved it. It’s beautiful. I’m glad you think so. Yeah, it’s a. I’m glad that he’s coming to light, because he deserves to be in the light. So, what, what was the name of what you wrote again, or what you read, just so that I read a passage from the enlightened mind. And it’s the passage and you just have to go to the passages, you know, you’ll harness goddess Regina. Okay. It’s obvious, it’s from this, but I do not recommend picking this book up and starting to read it. Got it. Okay. I recommend reading the reading at least caribines book first. Okay. And then going through this. This is a like there’s books I read like I’ve been I’ve read through spinosis ethics I’ve gone through several meters. The ones I do in lecture every day for myself. And after I’m done procluses elements of theology I’m going to go through a Regina’s text. Well then I know how to do. Well, it’s just, you know, you do the luxury of divina and the end of philosophy of it, and it soaks into you in a way just reading a book doesn’t. And there’s some books that demand to be read that way and not just read. There’s lots of books that are should just be read and they’re great for that. But there are other books that have to be, they have to soak them up. Yeah, just read them. Any final thoughts if not I’m gonna end the recording. Rob did you want to say anything. No, I was just listening and like I get really quiet when I’m around people that I’m so enthralled with so I was just really soaking up every moment of it and now I thought it was fantastic. Yeah, I think he’s a really cool philosopher I have that book as well and I’ve encountered him a little bit in my past and he does he writes like in these affordances that like pull you into his world, and then make you want to go stab a dragon with a knife or something. I was yeah. Okay, I’m going to end the recording now. Thank you all so very, very much.