Geneology and Teleology
The genelogical, how ideas originate and develop, in the Nietschean sense of the "Geneology of Morals" is simultaneously TELEOLOGICAL, a notion that distinguishes the Greek West from the Tamil East and perhaps along with it the whole of the East.
But this, it must be stated immediately, is NOT for the world, for World History but for the episodizing subject. There is NO END as such for the World and towards which it is moving irrevocably , the Spirit is NOT trying to realise itself in World History as Hegel so boldly declared. The Spirit that has some kind of meaning in World History is NOT AT ALL a Spirit for imperfections of whatever kind are inconsistent with the Being of the Spirit. However there is an END, an ABSOLUTE END as the distant horizon, the NOT-YET but which is a distinct POSSIBILITY for the episodizing self which is the MEANING of its EXISTENCE characterized by a sequential and geneological structure.
The BEING-Present -AS-THE -WORLD is not for Itself but for the infinite number of psychic entities ensnared in the historical flux , not knowing how to extricate themselves, ie. the notorious Samsara so widely present in the Indian thinking. But BEING (or SIVA) being completely saturated (ParipuuraNam) is not only OUTSIDE the historical flux but also its Ground, the UNMOVED MOVER of Aristotle.
This Unmoved Mover moves the world in order to facilitate the psychic entities to effect existential episodizations and through that escape from the snares that throws them into eternal historicity. It is
this way of being of BEING that DANCE metaphor of Siva Nadaraja captures. Only THAT which is outside history but nevertheless IS in the world without being-in-it , can facilitate the fettered psychic entities to escape from the endless birth and death fostering historicity, the Samsara ie attain the
releasement.
The notion of GENESIS here is NOT simply morphological, biological, phylogenetic etc as in the purely evolutionary accounts.
What is peculiar here is that something NEW emerges because of existential episodization which involves the Distruction of the inherent IGNORANCE, the anjnjaanam, the Avidya . The Y that emerges because of the episodization, is such that there is now LESS Metaphysical Ignorance compared to X, that which is episodized and hence because of that less of ANavam in the interior of the psychic entity. Because of this the geneology is PROGRESSIVE and inherently TELEOLOGICAL because it moves towards the absolute destruction of IGNORANCE, of Avidya, of Anjnjanam etc.
But what kind of Progress that we are talking about here?
The geneology is not simply of morals but something more fundamental than that. It is inherently PURIFICATIONAL, each episodization makes the self LESS IMPURE and indirectly more ethically
sensitive but finally transcending even the bipolar and judgmental disposition ( the IRUVINAI of Saiva Siddhanta).
As we progress we become less and less IMPURE and looking at the same phenomenon positively, we become more and more Human and finally Spiritual with the divine sparks shining brilliantly as part of the personality. The acts of episodization are then acts of self -cleansing, of absolving from within the delimiting fetters, the chains that imprison one into the interminable Samsara, the historicity. The kind of geneology that Hermeneutic Couseling emphasizes and promotes TRANSFORMS the person so that he is a BETTER person , a better individual.
Episodizing thus is NOT destruction, a dismantling or even deconstruction , a pure act of wanton dissipation but rather a DISCONSTRUCTION, a restructuring of Consciousness or Understanding that along with assimilating the Truths of the past also embodies something NEW as Gifst from BEING, the ARUL of BEING.
Thus Disconstruction involves UNFOLDMENT, the attainment of something NEW as a GIFT from BEING.
ULLAGANAR
9-2-1998
( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )
( Photo taken from wikipedia with thanks )
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