Disconstruction and Personal Development.
Through the empirical studies of many TEXTS including the non-verbal drawings such as my Access Tests , I rediscovered what Tholkaapiyar, more than two thousand years ago discovered as an important structural element in every TEXTS viz. sequential organization that he called Athikara MuRaimai, an organization quite distinct from the Whole-Part relationship, the pakuthi-thokuthi that has played a central role in Western Hermeneutics.
It is this which enabled me to see EPISODIZATION as something that is done by every author , including young children, who would execute a coherent TEXT that is COMPLETED and hence a WHOLE in some sense. But of course this is done UNCONSCIOUSLY but it is there in the TEXTS that he brings forth for everybody to see only if they have the eyes to see.
But what is this episodization, the verbalized form of 'episode'?
When X is episodized there is simultaneously the allowing to emerge an Y which is distinct from X and because of which episodization is terminating-initiating, the antam-aati of Meykandar , and hence DISCONSTRUCTION as distinct from Heidegger's destruction and Derrida's deconstruction.
And to do this, X has to be seen as a WHOLE for otherwise its LACK cannot be seen and articulated. That which is episodized, the X, has to be seen as TOTALITY in order to see what is still wanting in it, what deficiency lurks within but still remains unnoticed. To episodize is to HIGHLIGHT this LACK and hence to push it down to the PAST, now as something that belongs to HISTORY and allow , in virtue of that, a Y to occupy the presence, be the CURRENT, the ongoing concern. Hence episodization is 'depresencing', the dethroning the current, the ongoing , the presence as NO MORE so and replace it something NEW. Episodization is inherently revolutionary.
Thus what is episodized is pushed DOWN in the ladder of progress, of development and growth. But it is NOT vaporized , allowed to disappear into a NOTHINGNESS. It is retained in the current, the ongoing etc as that which has been ASSIMILATED, understood and already incorporated into the ongoing positively or negatively or as the Tamil philosophers would say, as Akam or PuRam, as within the ongoing or exterior to it. Or as Parapakkam or Supakkam in the style of AruNandi Sivacariyar, a famous Tamil philosopher of the 13th cent.A.D.
To episodize then, is to allow the presence of another WHOLE, a Gestalt more comprehensive and inclusive than that which has been episodized and pushed down now as belonging to the past. The UNDERSTANDING that remains unepisodizable in this sense is SUPAKKAM, the TRUTH.
The Tamil Saiva Siddhanta metaphysics was given this turn by Meykandar by his understanding that BEING is antam-aati: the Ground disconstrucution and regeneration .
This competence to episodize also noted as a FUNDAMENTAL competence of self, the individual psyche, as its essence as observed by Meykandar who notes this by saying that the psyche in essence is the aintezuttu, the si-va-ya-na-ma, the cognitive demons that enables a psyche to episodize, consciously or unconsciously.
Now because episodization is SEQUENTIAL where the deficiencies in the earlier are made good in the latter, we can note an ABSOLUTE END, the MUKTI as a situation where further episodizations are IMPOSSIBLE. When we arrive psychically at this way of Being, it informs us that that's the END , the CLOSURE, towards which we have been moving all along. But now finally it has ARRIVED, it has come HOME, the Viidu where the episodizing tendency is put to rest, NOT allowed to show itself from within.
Thus there is STRUCTURE and GENESIS in the Pedagogic Hermeneutics that centres on episodization as the FUNDAMENTAL activity that all psychic entities practice, consciously or unconsciously.
There is Global Structure and Local Structure of that which is episodized. The Global Structure puts it as belonging to History , to Tradition as a part of the grand World History. The Local Structure discloses the individual concerns, that with which a finite mind is concerned . In the Historical, there is SEQUENTIAL structure which can be a progress or the converse. Where the deficiencies of that which is episodized , the X, is understood and because of which a Y that does not have that deficiency is allowed to be the PRESENCE, there is sequentiality along with PROGRESS or DEVELOPMENT.
Here there is also a GENESIS: Y is generated from an X by the act of episodization. The genetic does not exist within the Local Structure, between X as a whole and its constituent structures., within Whole- Part relationships or as the Tamil philosophers would put it between avayavi and avayavam, the organismic whole and its organs. The Genesis and Development or its converse is noted only within Sequential Organization, the Athikara MuRaimai of Tholkappiyar. The static structuralism does NOT disclose the movement that allows us to recognize Progress and Development or the ABSENCE of it.
And here we see what distinguishes Hermeneutic Counselling from others. In Hermeneutic Counselling we allow, encourage, work for the confused and bewildered individual to EFFECT EPISODIZATION on his OWN UNDERSTANDING on his OWN so that the present understanding that's the source of worries pains , mental sickness etc. is episodized and in its place a new understanding, a Y , comes to prevail and along with it mental health and better clarity. It is NOT a total breakaway from the past but rather a disconstruction, the assimilating what can be into the present and discarding what cannot or should not be and this evaluated on the basis of TRUTH. It is actually a reconstituting self with less of the negative and more of the positive and auspicious.
This applies not only to Depth Psychology but also to the whole gamut of Human Sciences.
Let me add here a bit : as far as I know the Vedantic thinking inspired by Sankara and as available in the Tamil philosophical texts such as Tattuvaamirtam, Amirtasaaram of Tattuvarayar (16th cent), the Kaivalya Navaneetam of Tandavaraa a CuvaamikaL, ( 14th or 15th cent ?) , the Vedanta IlakkaNam of Icuur Caccatanatar (19th cent) and so forth DO NOT articulate a metaphysics in terms of this kind of episodization or cangkaaram. The Sarva Darsana Cangraha of Vittiyaranya also does NOT understand the Indian philosophical systems in terms of Parapakkam and Suppakkam as is done by AruNandi Civaccariyar, the foremost pupil of Meykandar. While Namazvar does subscribe to this view, the Upaya Vedanta of Ramanuja does not and hence the Sri Vaisnavisam failed to articulate the Camayaatiitam , that of transcending religions and become absolutely universal by becoming metaphysically PURE, something that gets very clearly articulated in KaNNudaiya VaLlal's "ozivil Odukkam ' (13th cent) and the metaphysical verses of Thayumanavar ( 18th cent)
ULLAGANAR
19-2-98
( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student )
( photo of Jacques Derrida taken from wikipedia with thanks )
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