Two Hundred and Sixteen

All that we know, we knew in the beginning; and the longer we live, the more we forget.

In the beginning, our wise men said our bodies inspire us with desires that prevent us from seeing things as they are.  We can try to ignore those desires, but only when we leave our bodies will we see things clearly. 

Philosophy, said Socrates, is training for dying.  It purges the soul of those bodily desires that tempt us to see things as we wish and/or fear they are, and prepares us to see them as they really are.  This has been our greatest illusion.

In the beginning, every child knows it’s not immortal.  It had a beginning, and will therefore have an end.  But usually the longer it lives, the more reluctant it becomes to give up living; and the more it’s tempted to forget what it knows, and believe those who say death is not the end.

There is no beginning, and no end.  All is one, say the mystics who our wise men scorn.  We see reality as divided into things only because we are things.  Our bodies and our souls are equally illusory, such stuff as dreams are made on.