Poetry, Politics and Spirituality: Essays on Transcendence

By George Lysloff

Born in Paris, France from a Russian migr father
and a Baltic-German mother, the author grewup
in poverty, developed into a cosmopolitan
minded individual. He studied medicine, worked
as a psychiatrist and never stopped writing, fi rst in
French, then in German and lastly in English.
He immigrated to the US over 50 years ago and
continued to expound on his poetry as well as his
philosophical ideas, still very much infl uenced by
his mostly French, but also more international,
almost global views.
He got married and sired three children, all quite successful. He presently
lives in Wisconsin and the present book is his fourteenth-published product.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469138930

George Lysloff

"The world should know and learn to accept the fact that life and fantasy (read "inner experience") co-exist in any person's existence. Subjectivity is the primary motor to anyone's being. My stories illustrate the point, I hope, and give the reader the chance to review his own personal life, placing its events in an acceptable and worthwhile perspective and allowing him to retain (or maybe regain) a proper distance from the fallacies of 'what's real." This is most certainly "existentialistic" and, from a philosophical viewpoint, an "idealistic" attitude. It offers a powerful alternative to the current evolution of society toward a strictly materialistic and utilitarian mode of living" - George Lysloff Lysloff was born in Paris, France of a Russian emigré father and a Baltic-German mother. He went through is primary and secondary education in various French schools. He studied medicine in Germany and Belguim, obtaining his diploma in 1951. He immigrated to the United States in 1954, and took his specialty training in the field of Psychiatry. He received his Board Certification in 1963. He was employed in various mental hospitals in the Midwest, and then moved back to Europe in 1972. He remained active in his profession until his retirement in 1993. George was married in 1950, and the couple had four children. After his wife fell ill with Alzheimer's disease and had to move to a care home, he lives close to his children in Wisconsin. His writing career began with poetry, initially written in the French, which he later translated to English. Other books by George Lysloff: Life and Fantasy: Pilgrimage, Life and Fantasy: On that side of Awakening, Life and Fantasy: Growing Up, Life and Fantasy: New World Rhapsody, Life and Fantasy: Andernach on the Rhein, Letters to my Beloved Ghost, Poems and Stanzas, Reaching Out, Poems and Stanzas II, Poems and Stanzas III, Poems and Stanzas IV, Poems Visions Reflections, Impressions in Verse and Prose, and Visions and Reflections II

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POETRY,

POLITICS

And

SPIRITUALITY

Addendum:

ESSAYS

ON TRANSCENDENCE

George  Lysloff

Madison, WI 2011

Copyright © 2012 by George Lysloff.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2011962856

ISBN:                      Hardcover                      978-1-4691-3892-3

                                 Softcover                      978-1-4691-3891-6

                                 Ebook                            978-1-4691-3893-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

109592

Contents

THE LEFT TURN

SPACE MIGRATION

MEMORY NOTE

FROM BANG TO RIP

THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN

REVERIE

LISTENING IN ON A

POLITICAL POLEMIC

PRESENT, FUTURE AND ON

PRESENT, FUTURE AND ON

PRESENT, FUTURE AND ON

PRESENT, FUTURE AND ON

PRESENT, FUTURE AND ON

REACTION

BIFURCATIONS

SILENT APPEAL

NUMBERS AND CONSTANTS

REVERIE 2

The EMERSON and THOREAU CONCEPTS

INTERLUDE

BREAKING NEWS!

RATIONALIZING—

A TIME STUDY

PRAYING to ONESELF

DEVOLVING

SCENARIO

ESTRANGEMEnT—1

ESTRANGEMENT—2

UPS AND DOWNS

THE ROLE OF DECISION MAKING

A NEW YEAR

SPIRIT OR CLAY?

An ADIEU to POETRY

SENESCING

PREPAREDNESS

ALONE

THE LAW OF AVERAGE

BEQUEST

AN IDLE MOMENT’S REFLECTIONS

SPIN OFF ON SPINOZA

RECURRENCES

IDLE COMMENTS

PHILOSOPHICAL ECHOES

OBSCURITY

THOUGHTS AND WORDS

THOUGHTS AND WORDS—2

PHILOSOPHERS

THOUGHTS AND WORDS—3

THOUGHTS AND WORDS—4

THE PRIMARY PROCESS

ADDENDUM

ESSAYS ON A TRANSCENDENTAL ABSOLUTE LOGICAL SYSTEM

PROLOGUE

1—SCALES AND DUALISMS

—Scales and Dualisms—

LOOPS

—Scales and Dualisms—(cont,)

FIELDS

—Representational Systems—

MACHINEMAN

2—The fundamental dualisms

THOUGHTS

2—THE FUNDAMENTAL DUALISMS (Continued)

3—A reinterpretation

of Chaos

THE MULTIVERSE CONCEPT

3—A REINTERPRETATION OF CHAOS (continued)

REFLECTIONS ON COSMOLOGY

3. A REINTERPRETATION OF CHAOS (continued)

SCHROEDIGER ‘CAT REVISITED

3.—A re-interpretation of Chaos (continued)

MORE ON THE MULTIVERSE

3—A REINTERPRETATION OF CHAOS (continued)

—4—TRANSCENDENTAL SEMANTICS

—RECAPITULATION—

5—THE CONCEPT OF SYNTHANALYSIS

6—INTEGRATIVE TRANSCENDENTALISM

—7—AN IDEAL OF TOLERANCE

8—BEING AND COGNIZANCE

9—LOGICS AS A MODEL OF

THE WORLD

10—ABSOLUTE REALITY

—11—BEING AS SELF_SYSTEM

—12—BELIEF AS SELF—SYSTEM

—13—TRANS-

PHENOMENOLOGY

—14—A LAST WORD ABOUT TRANSCENDENCE

ILLUSION, ESSENCE, REALITY

Books by GEORGE LYSLOFF

By FIRSTBOOK, now AUTHORHOUSE:

-    Life and Fantasy: Pilgrimage—2002

-    Life and Fantasy: On that side of Awakening—2002

-    Life and Fantasy: Growing Up—2003

-    Life and Fantasy: New World Rhapsody—2003

-    Life and Fantasy: Andernach on the Rhein—2003

-    Letters to my Beloved Ghost—2004

-    Poems and Stanzas—Compositions in White and Black—2004

By BOOKMAN, now AIRLEAF

-    Daun, Village among the Volcanoes—2004

By X LIBRIS

-    Letters to my beloved Ghost—re-publication—2005

-    Poems and Stanzas—re-publication—2005

-    Reaching out—2005

-    Poems and Stanzas II—2007

-    Poems and Stanzas III—2008

-    Poems and Stanzas IV Vagaries—2009

-    Poems Visions Reflections—2010

-    Impressions in Verse and Prose—Visions and reflections II—2010

-    Poetry Transcendence and the Search for Wisdom—Visions and Reflections III = 2011

Dedicated t o

my beloved wife

my closest frIend

Wanda

THE LEFT TURN

I turned at the crossway

And that which could have been

Changed to what never was.

I went ahead and took the path

Most promising and unhindered,

And found myself in an impasse.

I looked for where I departed

From the trail I had meant to walk,

Retraced my steps, hoping to land

Where I recalled was my last stand.

But is existed no longer.

I stepped ahead to the future

I had meant to conquer. I went,

Quite determined to take a dare:

But victory was elusive.

I turned away from fate’s blind eyes.

I walked across the next threshold.

And found myself stranded for good

In protracted mediocrity.

That is the day when I asked time

To cease peeling off the hours.

I had run out of tomorrows,

Made no more choice, except for the

Final decision, my last step.

I allowed for eternity

To take over; for I reneged

On my life’s empty illusions

And fallacies, and made to meet

My destiny.

SPACE MIGRATION

Two ideas erupted today from the depth of my psychic fonts!

The one dealt with how Man has been viewing with regarding the role he sees himself assuming as to the future of the planetary system he lives in as well as ultimately in the nearby Universe. Scientists, writers and dreamers have been fantasizing about voyaging through the Cosmos, crossing over to neighboring planets, to the moon, to distant stars with their own companions and satellites.

Some wrote in all seriousness about settling down on the one or other of those, establishing colonies in order to provide more space for the rapidly expanding human masses. However the realists among them expressed pessimism regarding the prospects of those ambitions.

It is a fact that most if not all of the objects under consideration, starting with the other planets of our own solar system, in one or more (even most) of their physical status or conditions are totally inimical toward any potential settlement by human immigrants, or for that matter even visitors.

The lone advantage those members of our system may offer is that they are within a relatively short distance from our home world, thus technically amenable to an attempt at reaching them by space ship, and thereby do not force humans to rely on major and elaborate technical measures.

Every space body within Man’s reach, including the inner and the outer planets of our system with their satellites as well as our own, in one way or another, are murderous places to be on, to say the least.

Terra-forming sounds like an interesting concept and a much mentioned fictional avenue for adapting a foreign milieu to our needs as humans. But I am sure that the financial means that type of project would require are way beyond our capabilities, not just for the technology involved but principally because of who and how we are.

As trans-sidereal travel goes, we may be talking of journeys through space requiring years, even decades before arriving in the vicinity of even the closest star system, provided it can offer us a string of planets, especially habitable ones.

Once there we are certain to encounter at best the same restrictive and prohibitive issues that presented themselves as we considered our planetary neighbors.

Anything beyond that becomes true fiction and chimera. Almost every day astronomers are discovering new planetary systems, but know nothing of their characteristics and surface conditions.

I must assume that even if there were a planet out there with the potential to show the proper and identical parameters that allow us to exist on Earth or at least nearly so, most probably a local form of biological evolution would be encountered since, as presently understood, we know that life is by no means an exceptional occurrence, but practically the rule in this Universe.

Then what? Are we to contemplate a forceful intrusion or invasion, a colonization, a violent take-over? The odds for any of those scenarios are infinitesimal and actually out of place.

My reason for that opinion is that we are in fact and in every respect the strict product of the planet we inhabit, our Earth, born of its substance in line with the physical, chemical and other aspects of its nature. We belong to that Earth, we are part of it and, given the proper circumstances, shall never cease to be a part of it.

It owns us! We are its biological face, we are married to its envelope of various gases, its mineral and physical structure condition, its electromagnetic mantle, its rhythms and cycles, its overall developmental properties and character.

Our cells are the result of an evolution going back many millions of years, our genetic history is unique in its unfolding, as the motor that our globe provided for that uniqueness since the birthing of life and what it led up to. That is us!

The Earth that nurtured us feeds us with its substance which is also our substance. We are fully interdependent with all the other facets of our Gaea, its plant life, its micro-organisms.

Our chemistry must remain in constant balance with it as well as with its level of radiation, both local nuclear and solar based. I could go on enumerating valid questions regarding the ties that bind us irrevocably tour planetary habitat.

This is our Earth. I and we are our Earth! It is Us!

We simply do not belong out there!

These remarks are not motivated by some kind of patriotism directed at our mother planet. Those are cool biological facts.

I have another argument to make in this respect, a more esoteric, subjective, transcendent one!

In the spiritual sense, I-Man am also I-God, so that whatever exists in this Universe is part of me and of us, of what we are. This idea is an extension of what I brought out previously on the planetary scale only.

Because of that fact I-we are at all times acquainted with the Nature of all the space objects present in our astronomical Cosmos. We study them, gauge, observe, assess and even catalogue them;. But beside that, we are there as well, we, the projections of the Totality, we Godlike units of the Essense and of the Absolute Reality that perceive and, as its creator, include our Universal Being!

I and we were and are there, on any of those planets and close to their mother-stars and Galaxies! They in turn are I and us, and we are all of them! We are united with the Multiverse and wherever else we may choose to be, in thought while living, and mostly after the completed transition!

MEMORY NOTE

A message came, a letter,

A thank you note, a few lines,

One of my ghosts, born again,

Had returned from oblivion,

Resurrected yet faceless.

I only could remember

Her gentle and clear Aura,

All else was an impression,

A thought, an old emotion

Wrapped in a vague nostalgia.

Still I fancied being a youth

Once again as I read the words

Of one I thought was gone

For ever and a day.

FROM BANG TO RIP

Cosmology’s Final Solution foresees a continuous acceleration in the expansion of the Universe because of its curvature. This leads to an exponential increase of the relative percentage of Dark Energy over all the other (lesser) elements contained in our bubble.

According to that view, the temporal course (in linear time) is a final dissolution of all baryonic matter, including its invisible dark complement, estimated to represent 24 % of all energy matter), down to free atoms and particles, with a terminal poof marking the extinction of our Cosmos.

This particular scenario assumes a continuous, constantly accelerating inflation of the bubble as we know it. As has however been seen, the development of the Cosmos has been somewhat discontinuous with a number of assumed stages and levels in its unfolding.

For a long time, scientists tended to assume a slowing down of the expansion and, after a nominal stand-still, a reversal of the entire process which then would terminate in a sort of un-banging, otherwise called the Big Crunch.

Such has now been excluded as a possible finale of the cosmological field, and has become the basis for the Multiverse idea, with Island Universes popping in and out of existence on a rather unimaginable scale!

As I consider those rather distant prospects from a detached viewpoint, I envision two follow-through ideas.

The one is to accept that contemporary cosmological notion at face value, whether they involve a final Rip (R.I.P, get it?), or a terminal Un-banging! What it all leads up to I do not want to know and believe that no one else will.

I make this statement because the basic question remains:" What happens (in linear time, mind you!) after the completion of the cycle, the bursting of the bubble or the ultimate disappearance of the initial singularity and all its contents or prospective ones; or then:

What happens to the dissolving galaxies, clusters, stars, dark matter, etc., leaving the dark energy, now immensely if not infinitely vaster, to its own devices?

I must add that this representation is actually a rather incorrect way of considering the matter, since it (the matter in question) is to my human understanding an undefinable multiplicity of units doing their thing as wave-or-particle routine according to the corresponding laws of Quantum Mechanics.

In either case, the end result is nothingness, whatever the concept may entail. Is nothingness something? Is it God? Is it anything at all?

Those are very abstruse and obviously nonsensical, non-answerable questions. Both lines of reasoning end up in imponderable concepts, either in an infinity or in an absolute nullification, the two extreme resolution to any in-between evolutionary course!

The reader may sense by now that by using those arguments, I may once again feel entitled to bring forward my usual solution. Look back and think of the author of those arguments: Man, also to be seen as a reflection of Man-God, attempting to be God and, as is to be expected, failing in his attempt to solve the mysteries of what is.

This order of problems arises whenever Man attempts to use his so-called abstractive ability as he try to deal with the laws of Nature. He keeps doing it by ignoring his other face, that is his godly side, using only the instruments that his material structure has placed at his disposal, actually for entirely different reasons than to unravel the what’s and why’s of the world he lives in.

What does this interpretation of such ideas lead up to?

I agree that my views are speculative, which is not too surprising. But they are as logical as any of the concepts derived from the cosmology or physics conclusions of some scientists, as mentioned earlier.

My ideas fit within the transcendental philosophical framework such as I have elaborated in my writings and are not just idle speculations.

I realize and understand the value of the scientific perspective and its theoretical deductive inferences, drawn from the position of rationalism and material realism since they are just as strongly based, or better, within the total system of inquiry in question, including its mathematical aspects, the various avenues of verification and what is called direct observation.

Still I have already gone into a critique of the conceptual formulations involved, starting with the one-sided logical instruments used, the numerous artifices employed for arriving at a favorable validation in the case of inconclusive results (infinity or the introduction of a new variable).

I must object to the almost dogmatic introduction of those constants, and other corrective functions used for bolstering some of the current theories.

When I refer to God, I do not do so for the sake of a religious orientation or construct. I use the term as the semantic equivalent to the words Prime One. Principle, and similar, in place of what others will call nothingness’ or unknown factor, or sometime as prime cause,

I place my Self at the side of Nature, and I see Nature as a face of the Totality or, if one prefers, as God in the pantheist sense, avoiding to insert my human self somewhere between God and Nature!

That in no way implies identification with a so-called Higher entity, but rather refer to my acknowledging the Principle of Life as awareness and consciousness, as well as that which I may perceive as appended to that designation.

This extends to the Creator concept as spirit, or as a disembodied facet of the Reality I perceive, namely that which I intuitively sense as All-pervading and All-present.

I refuse to place myself outside of the Reality, of that All-pervading Principle and elect to see it as another aspect of me, of my very own Self, of what I call my Spirit. I communicate with it directly, personally or separately, because it lies in me as well as outside of me.

I may speak with my inner Self at any time, I sometimes may pray to my inner aspect as Man or as Totality. But that Totality cannot and is not exterior and different from who and what I am, notwithstanding my material structure, my personal habit and destiny,

At some level of my persona, I gain access to the world, not only the familiar, everyday one, but also any other level of the Reality of that world. With its help, I can intuit, I make contact with it through my memory and my imagination, my inspiration or my dreams.

I can rely on it to help me create, invent, love or be in the most intense way.

Those thoughts are part of the foundation of what I may call the concept of Absolute Transcendental Being, one which allows me to envision a (for me) more comprehensive face of Reality, to learn and utilize its potentials and augment my sense of becoming and creating.

THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN

I once had some thoughts on the subject of the Intelligent Design and found the matter quite difficult to speak about intelligently.

For one when I examine the word intelligent, I must wonder about its use in such a context, since intelligence applies only to human beings.

It denotes a particular level of mental activity generally reserved for the upper ranges of cogitation, a notion that in any case rarely is applied to any other living entity, be it animal or even more so, vegetal life, and only occasionally and figuratively to some of the primates.

It has been used in fictional accounts regarding alleged extra-terrestrial aliens of whatever shape or type, but not directly to a Divine Being.

I see it as a somewhat wishful attempt at humanizing the Nature of a Divine essence so as to render it more reachable, more amenable.

God, as encountered in a number of religions is regarded as an entity vastly remote from man and his co-creatures, one that one is hard put to try and emulate or even understand by the minds of those that address their prayers to him!

The degraded quality of such a concept of the deity, possessed with a hominid intellect, is a feeble and transparent effort on the part of many segments of the world population at projecting its psychological limitations to characterize and create a fictitious ideal figure that in fact remains a still-born presumption.

All those also assume that the God they seek is of a type that will correspond and reflect its makers and supporters.

The term design refers to more of the same. It reflects the conviction that Man in his make up corresponds to a properly planned, well functioning and sufficiently well executed machinery, the result of a masterful, well-executed engineering project.

I do not doubt that the orderliness and intricate structure of the Universe and its contents at every level need to be considered as extraordinary, but then what is there in that same Universe that can be called run-of-the-mill?

However the perfection we are looking at (at least as it will appear to us human beings), does not need to infer a prior blue-print, a sort of higher stage architectural inventiveness, similar to a well-executed work of art.

Most will agree that there is generally more order than chaos in the Universe, something that has baffled humankind, in particular in its extreme dimensions, the cosmological as well as the infinitesimal, down to the seeming paradoxes and contradictions encountered along the path.

But when one speaks of design, the notion implies an anthropomorphized super entity acting in the guise of a giga-scientist, a master mathematician, physicist, cosmologist, etc., all rolled into one, concocting a genial and economic way of countering Chaos.

Even Chaos, wherever it may be found, is in some manner "organized’ and responds to the most part to the laws of probability and predictability.

I may conjure the theory of the Multiverse again, with an "infinite’ array of bubbles, each one obeying its own set of physical laws, its structures, its own constants and properties and configurations.

I believe that we may exist on one of those (if we wish to abide by that particular vision of Absolute Reality), where the initial Singularity (if there was one) led to a creative Big Bang that assumed its very specific dimensional fields.

If we want to remain within the confines of the recently often disclaimed classic materialistic sciences, it triggered off our particular variety of temporal flow, its types and modalities of basic particles with their own complex physical properties, its quanta nature and non-local jumps, its charges, groupings, etc.

This newly emerged vista opened up and spread forth on the basis of an alleged random happenstance particular to our new emerging world.

It unfolded in its own manner, splitting, combining, conglomerating or pulling asunder, guided by appropriate or chance (?) rules and laws.

Whether one wants to assume a designer for each one of the emerging Universes is a matter of importance only to Us-Men and not to Us-God!

Here too we encounter the often mentioned issue of choice, plurality, antinomies, polar complements, all of which leading on to the dual notions science sees reflected in its theories concerning particle physics, as quoted before.

Classical ideas in those fields present us with a flood of paired particles, each co-joining with, or else destroying, their opposite (matter-anti-matter), etc

I notice that our use of conceptual dualisms, like anything else, seems primarily to be the reflection of our level on the scale of material structures, which is also our scale of existence. We live on the Earth and must deal with the factors that are immediately concerned with our life, our horizons, our awareness, an d out surrounding background as possibly created by us.

In fact this dualizing mode serves Man very well for his purposes, mastering whatever problems are relevant in his level of actuality.

It would be an mistake to want to extend that level of thinking, reasoning or conceptualizing to stages or categories that are foreign to our evolutionary path and the adaptive processes that helped us to remain functional in the immediate surroundings we were made (or made, without were!) to fit in.

As I proceed to widen my attention to either the cosmological or nuclear-physical fields, I must also pay attention and take the scale differentials into account.

That requires an adjustment in not only the scope of my sensory means of observation, but also of the suitable instruments and implements I use, resulting also in a timely re-calibration of my mental, logical; and intellectual operating means.

Man cannot simply transfer his three-dimensional way of thinking to a four- or more dimensional Universe, or to whatever happens when he observe it in a more indirect way such as when dealing with the sub-atomic level. That is the avenue that my Man-God creativity should follow to move forward as I try to grasp what I see and witness, and mostly who I am.

I am convinced that the scientists of the future will take that aspect of our inquisitive activities under close scrutiny and develop the needed adjustments to our rational, intellectual or any other faculties of our consciousness, so as to arrive at a more current and efficient relationship with the apparent extrinsic part of the mind/matter interface we deal with.

REVERIE

Somewhere, somewhen, I had befriended her,

That girl I loved in a diffident way.

She claimed she minded me a lot as well.

I knew: My heart, my soul, belonged to her.

We were staying in a sea-side resort,

Maybe vacationing away from home.

All this seems like a dream I was having.

That day we stood, linked together amidst

A crowd of young people, perhaps students.

She rested one arm around my shoulder;

I thought I felt her pulsing heart; it flapped

Its wings against my chest, about to fly.

She almost was gone already, about

To go away, to leave, take off, return

Home to her family’s far away dome.

There were so many things for her to do,

Duties, obligations, who knows really.

I could think of no particular way

To ask that she remain, avoid parting

And severing our budding romance.

It amounted to a final adieu,

Then, all of a sudden, she was not here

Any more. There survived only a trace,

A subtle touch of her where she had stood.

She left behind a scented nostalgia,

A residue, an illusion of love,

The memory of her leaning on me,

Holding me tight, wishing to stay maybe

And to revert to our past closeness.

But she needed to go. Now all I held

Was a broken thread, a bond that had tied

Us to where we had been minutes ago,

A magical linkage, a communion,

A gentle, tender soul affinity,

The waning sign of her cherished presence,

A disappearing unreality

Of our fortuitous encounter.

I recalled the tenderness radiating

From her hand as it tightly clasped my own,

Her embracing arm circling my shoulder

I shook myself and went my way, and then

I fell awake.

I opened my eyes, could not remember

Who she had been. I surmised that the girl

Was one of my night visitors, a scheme,