My beloved friend,
In this text is told
Of the night that brings all things into existence
And of man’s being,
And through these things,
Of every manner of affirmation and loud laughter
And songs of heroes.
All fog and dusk open up
And a celestial body, glowing and eternal,
Enveloping all noble souls,
Will finally emerge.
At that time
This text will burn away
Through its own heat.
1. WHAT IS TRUTH?
Consciousness of existence is always in one form or another accompanied by the desire to question. Consciousness attempts to confirm that its own concerns (in the simple sense of this term) are highest. It is inclined to disregard the matter of “for what purpose” and take up the question of “what is first of all necessary.”
Yet we are not utterly blind or indifferent to what lies behind the issue of “for what purpose.” The common and self-evident orientation of this metaphysical questioning can always be summed up in the words “for truth” or “for life.”
Although truth itself is not necessarily questioned, it always remains the driving force behind man’s spiritual and cultural life. No matter what the question is, it can never be entirely indifferent to truth. Truth is always one element in the drama of life, whether as theater, stage, script, writer, critic, or actor.
As every serious thinker today knows, however, the idea or ideal state that is truth does not exist objectively outside us in the form of something fixed or stable. Yet when one asks whether what has been categorically termed as truth is either analogous or homologous (to borrow terms from biology), then truth inevitably disappears in the vague fog as a symbol of fanciful myths.
But this disappearance is a result of neither man’s imperfection nor insufficient analysis; rather, it is the necessary fate of truth. Why is this? Such anxiety appears on the basis of various actions as a premonition. A kind of “rational” judgment attempts to bring about the fall of all things into a single point floating in infinity. Immersed in the grief of its own self-doubt, consciousness tries to find something that precedes it. Reason falls while unreason dissolves. Everything then melts into the chaos of creation. Light seems to shine forth when all things become entangled and align with the depths of a single night. Like the coming of spring, a kind of hope and joy flits by within the symbol of the night.
But it then strikes one that truth is yet once again left behind in winter, teased by the freezing wind. Why is this?
In order to answer this question, I will first level a charge against the traditional errors and unclear definitions concerning the notions of subject and object. I will then conclude that truth can never be questioned in this manner. Yes, the question of truth must be posed once again in the faraway skies.
2. SUBJECT AND OBJECT
Subject and object have been the target of mankind’s most brilliant battles over knowledge since ancient times. Each has tried to usurp the absolute throne and negate the other, but with few exceptions the battle finally appeared to end with the pure object falling to its knees before the pure subject. However, ontological existence, which precedes this division between subject and object, has been allowed to reign over both of these by virtue of the fact that man’s suffering has sunk more and more deeply within the infinite realm of intuition. Unknown, anxious expectations have been presaged in several souls as the comprehensive source of life. Within the night of deep souls, in which there is nothing to question or criticize, higher souls have identified the voice of production.
Nevertheless, subject and object have not disappeared from our view. When the night of deep souls rose to a testimonial of life via the form of consciousness, subject and object remained unresolved in the hollows of both outstretched hands. As always, these two were conflated in various ways.
As champions of life or higher knowledge, we must of course break with the global dimension of subject and object so as to live within the deep night—that is, the existential nothingness where reason and unreason coincide. All affirmations must then reemerge in the instantaneously heroic or tragic transformation, and we must find our own correct path within our incessant falling.
Yet when experience-based philosophers and poets of the cosmos (Dionysus) encounter language in the form of consciousness, which is the necessary restraint on human relations, is it possible to completely abandon the dimension of subject and object? For the highest souls that fall into the everydayness of existence, is that dimension merely a meaningless specter?
Yes and no, as is most certainly the case. We encounter here a double response that involves both negation and affirmation. Yet there is no contradiction here.
First, let us consider the case of negation. The fixed pressures and faith with which we are burdened certainly disappear without a trace before our premonition of the deep night, and only poetic ecstasy overcomes suffering to instantly plunge us forward into the dawn of affirmation. Yet what should we do with the daily reflection of our humanity, a humanity that cannot be God precisely because it desires to be God? Worldly existence cannot be forever condensed into one high dimension. Lower dimensions are invariably rooted to the increasing depths of the world as the essence of the night, and constantly sustain themselves via the ever higher unfolding. Is it not then natural for the dimension of subject and object to remain as one element of life?
Second, a brief matter can be considered in the case of affirmation. A transformation is demanded—that is, an incessant separation and departure—through which we can seek the life of the self that flows among all everyday things as something unfolding within a cosmos that transcends subject and object.
Considered from two distinct standpoints, the subject and object that had once rippled identically upon the same dimension now appear clearly as utterly different and irreconcilable dimensions. The language might be the same in these two cases, but their form and character are revealed to be completely different.
Yet I shall introduce a third subject and object that comes about at an even higher level of unfolding. It is this that must truly be questioned, for it requires a great leap in our attitude regarding such things as truth and life.
Think about it: what has traditionally been handed down to us through these words “subject” and “object”? “Object” refers to a notion that is shared by all, that is, possesses universal validity, whereas “subject” indicates a particular notion that is unique to each individual. From our standpoint, however, the notion of universal validity itself already involves the loss of objectivity. If the object is to reacquire a forceful standpoint before thought, then it must be reconsidered on the basis of a definition other than that of universal validity. The object must now be critically reappraised from an existential perspective.
All kinds of voices begin from the point where our souls come in contact with the essence of the night. These voices unfold in various dimensions and become words. They can be grasped within consciousness in the form of self-negation or self-transcendence. The thing in itself—that is, intuition of the night—spawns a kind of symbolic premonition in the very form of unfolding itself. It is here where one glimpses the third object, which neither loses its existential significance nor violates the original inner unity that produces objective language.
It is clear that all expression necessarily takes place through the subject. Only subjective experience can transform all consciousness into language. Of course the differential weight of words (i.e., the dimensionality contained within them) can be understood in accordance with the different dimensions of the internal unfolding of each person as existent. The weight of words varies among subjects depending on the degree to which their souls come in contact with the essence of the night.
Now what is the significance of the ultimate point in the subject’s ever increasing dimensional unfolding? Man’s soul then experiences the approach of the infinite night. Intuition of the night is not merely conceptual; it appears in practical form within actions, experience, and methods. Can we not define this ultimate point, which is eternally distant and far away, as the third object?
The traditional notion of the object held that it exists outside us as a hypothetically independent entity, one whose form is eternally maintained. According to our definition, however, the object is internal but also forms part of the eternal form of the deep night that is both grasped as a symbolic mark and stands within our longing for life, which extends throughout the cosmos as a whole. Our original voice can be found therein. Despite the fact that this voice is the most subjective, it nevertheless goes far beyond the subjective and shudders within its premonition of the eternal. Here one finds existential eternity as condensed in the instant. Is this not the correct ontological interpretation of the object?
Only the perfected poet of the cosmos can clearly grasp this kind of object as his own. In other words, only the highest subject can approach it. Setting aside the question of the madman, souls, no matter how healthy (?) they are, perceive the object merely as an eternally unknown and illusory concept when their own subjective unfolding remains yet undeveloped. Eternity is possible only for those who know the night. As ever, the ancient dream of the object preserves its iconic status as something that makes ordinary people smile and cry.
3. WHAT IS TRUTH? PART TWO
Truth is the sound of a reed flute playing in the wilderness.
Truth is a disguise of the mind.
If we, while passing through various dimensions in our role of adjudicator, look closely at truth, which lingers coldly at times outside and within us, we immediately realize that it manifests our desire for self-sustenance. As Nietzsche said, we often mistake cause and effect. In such cases, the cause comes to be created in the service of the effect through a desire for explanation or solace. I have just made an assertion. Yet is not the assertion that “the cause comes to be created in the service of the effect” not an utter self-contradiction? Here the assertion already demands truth. To state that something is true is a kind of affirmation, an original cause. But isn’t this cause already nothing more than an explanation for the effect? Such suspicion renders the following observations completely meaningless, bringing them to a standstill by reducing all language to a mere excuse. Is truth then only an excuse for life?
Yet even this ambitious rhetorical question no longer waits for a response; instead it disappears in vain, unable to sustain its own excess weight. This question already conceals the desire and hope for a newer truth even if that means abandoning the truth one has hitherto maintained, which relates to the nature of truth as lacking any basic differences in dimension. The contradictions and deceptions contained in this question are the very elements of the guilty, mistaken notion of truth (?) that previously lured truth into a vast maze.
Truth thus floats up and sinks down, approaches while remaining inaccessible, already spectacularly fleeing beyond the range of negation and affirmation, but I wonder if we can’t recover it ourselves with the aid and method of the third object, as defined in the previous section.
Yet it would be both impossible and unjust to complete this task without critically appraising its own character. All questioning has its sources and goals. For all true thinkers, this point can never be overlooked. Now what is the ground from which our own questioning emerges? Are there any reasons why we find in this third object a premonition or expectation that truth can be recovered? Without first resolving these issues, our questioning can never rise beyond empty, diversionary logic.
Truth appears within all dimensions in many diverse forms. Truth first began in the affirmative form of judgment. The expressions “a … b … c is true” and “it is true that α … β … γ is true” potentially correspond to each other as based on the method of undetermined coefficients. That is, “a … b … c” can be replaced and fulfilled only according to the form “α … β … γ is true.” In other words, truth is the criterion of truthfulness. In this case, it is nothing other than objectivity that functions as the scale. This represents the first relation between truth and object.
Next let’s focus not on truth but on the disclosure of truth itself. (This also signifies the presence of dimensional stages of unfolding.) Truth itself is always disclosed as that which unfolds. This is precisely the reason why truth previously fell into a maze. Insofar as we recognize the necessity of the hermeneutical standpoint, we must acknowledge that truth goes beyond the constraint that something be true and requires meaning and value as well. In other words, truth is the self-perfecting unfolding of the principle of life (in the broad sense), which contains the highest meaning and value. In this sense, we can methodologically introduce the (second) relationship between truth and object.
In any case, truth exists outside the range of negation or affirmation. Truth itself is neither existence nor nonexistence. It preserves its character of relating to man, regardless of its importance or unimportance, or whether it relates to friend or enemy. Truth does not relate individually to individual instances but rather strictly on the basis of its own principled validity. It attempts to essentially govern all phenomena, regardless of dimension. As generally conceived, truth takes the form of philosophical principles.
In fact, however, truth is absolutely not a philosophical principle. Philosophical principles consist simply of laws that govern, but truth can never be limited to the form of a law. Like truth, philosophical principles might also represent an incessant advance toward a certain goal or direction. Although they follow the same movement, philosophical principles are an advance forward. In this sense, however, truth clings to one point. The movement of truth is discontinuous, to be found in leaps. Truth always changes dimensions through self-negation.
In other words, truth is a character of man’s being. Everything that I have stated above regarding the various tendencies of truth can be summarized in this one phrase. But this phrase is in no way self-contradictory (in relation to truth).
Let me provide an example in which everything that I have stated above can be brought together: “Truth is contained in the phrase ‘Truth is man’s aspiration.’” What is the relation here between the first truth and the second? Two cases can be discerned: one cyclical, the other dimensional unfolding. If the fact that truth is man’s aspiration signifies man’s aspiration, then this involves a cycle; otherwise it involves dimensional unfolding. One would be committing a serious error by considering this phrase to be merely cyclical. That is, truth understood as man’s aspiration invariably conceals within it will or intentionality. Truth can never be under man’s control. In the case of “A is truth,” however, truth is subjugated to reason in the form of a law. These two truths clearly possess different dimensions. Formally they represent an ascending unfolding, but in content they reveal a descending unfolding or closure. In its essence, however, the self-perfecting leap of truth does not restrict itself to either of these two truths. Rather it seeks itself in the small space between these two phrases. This gives rise to various possibilities, as follows:
“The claim that ‘truth is man’s aspiration’ itself may not be true. But might there not be some trace of truth concealed in the thought that truth is man’s aspiration?”
“Rather than claiming that truth is man’s aspiration, shouldn’t one conceive of truth as that which discloses itself as what must receive man’s aspiration?”
“There is already concealed in these phrases a longing for truth. The departure point of these phrases is nothing other than man’s being.”
“That is to say, truth is man’s being. This understanding of truth circulates infinitely, without any contradiction.”
“All (individual or dimensionally different) truth corresponds to its cyclical stage, as mentioned above. To claim that truth is one character of man’s being is to say that it can be obtained through the first cycle on the basis of a certain method. The two phrases presented at the beginning of this section correspond to a certain cyclical stage. At the same time, they also refer back to the one phrase above. All truths begin from ‘truth is man’s being’ and revert back to ‘truth is man’s being.’ This fact must be described as truth in the form of man’s being.”
“The claim that truth is man’s being itself undergoes infinite dimensional turns. This incessant turning takes place at infinite speed as compared to the path of negation and affirmation.”
(The phrase “man’s being” must be rigorously distinguished from that of “existing a priori within man.”)
Albeit in a very different form, we have finally reached this conclusion by following the method that departs from the subject to arrive at the third object. By focusing more closely on this conclusion, however, we realize that it has brought about a loss of value in truth. Truth that contains value is no longer the bare form of truth itself. Value itself is, like truth, man’s being, but it is completely independent of truth. When these two coincide, what is called truth is really an error caused by conflating these two through imperfect understanding, and this should be referred to rather as a desired object. From our standpoint, however, the classical notion of the object has already perished and been replaced by a new understanding of the third object, which must be described as an emissary of the night. Would this be applicable to the third object here? Such object represents the very limit of the ascending dimensional unfolding of the subject. Here a kind of poetic experience becomes necessary. The third object chooses its recipient. Just as a child selectively belongs to its mother before separating from her and becoming independent in a new generation, so too does this object separate from the individual character of the subject so as to be eventually raised to the level of pure human being in the form of cosmic poetic experience.
At the limit of various dimensional unfolding where “being-in the world” and “being in-the world” coincide, object and truth are recognized simply as different expressions of man’s being.
Thus all representations of phenomena refer back to the dimensional cycle of this one instance that is man’s being. In order to further clarify this matter, we must now more critically develop the representation and substance of this notion of “man’s being.”
4. MAN’S BEING
Man’s being: in the previous section we discussed the inner self-circulation of the representation and substance of man’s being. In this way, however, such an imperfect symbol inevitably perishes in nihilistic skepticism as a mere subjective idea. We now confront that danger. We must advance critical logic in order to avoid falling into the trap of reversing cause and effect.
The question of attitude must first be considered. As should be clear from the foregoing, those who critically approach this problematic must always put themselves in the movement and leap of incessant unfolding while keeping in mind the ultimate reflection of the dimensional stages, which is so easily lost sight of. Any hypotheses of one fundamental idea must here be absolutely avoided. Watching, learning, and critically appraising are far more important than thinking. What is required, in other words, is an attitude based on experience. Lacking any specific departure point at present, all deductive reasoning can rely only on the self-unfolding of our own attitude. That is to say, the notion of attitude does not refer simply to the attitude of the questioner, for this notion itself must be questioned in its essence. The being of the question—that is, its rise to the level of attitude—is what determines man’s being.
Nihilistic skepticism (the skeptical negation of all assertions) grounds itself on its own imperfect methodology, since it cannot maintain any of its own assertions or conclusions. Even if it transcends that character, however, it cannot negate it. Furthermore, even if nihilistic skepticism negates its own nihilism through self-skepticism, it cannot negate skepticism itself so as to affirm something new. Yet the incessant pursuit of this method eventually leads it to sublate its own status as skepticism and approach a state of Buddhist emptiness or a chaos that transcends both negation and affirmation. This method in fact coincides with the method of infinite dimensional unfolding that we have been following.
What we find here is chaos, a vast night: a night that conceals within itself numerous lives and sinks within its own horrible silence, an intense thermal mass that melts all. Here there is neither past nor future nor dream, for chaos is present and real. This chaos remains indifferent to individuality. A stifling indifference surrounds us. All words are commanded to be silent. Can anything possibly emerge from this chaos? What can we expect by standing here? What kind of premonition awaits order? Might there not be a secret concealed here somewhere? Or is that merely a specter of death and anarchy? Doesn’t everything slip away from my own two hands until finally I myself fall into falsehood?
These are criticisms, for here we must attempt the final unfolding. Such criticisms are not logical but rather experiential, as based on attitude. Our concern must be questioned and nihilism and the fall endured. We must experience the night ourselves, and even within our everyday lives breathe in the night and listen to its self-unfolding.
The night in no way signifies a conceptual state. Nor is it the target arrived at by criticism, negation, and affirmation. Such arrows lose their way in the night and drift off. The night cannot be defined. Rather it must be presaged and perceived firsthand as an urgent experience in an infinite dimensional unfolding. It can be grasped only instantaneously. Within this grasping, in fact, there exists a light that must be considered. What is to be critically approached, in other words, is the night in terms of its self-disclosure, imminence, and inner character.
To symbolize the night by that name is merely our interpretation. The desire to fall into truth, which might also be called self-recognition, is nothing other than an expression enabled by reason, which is the surface of the night. Such self-recognition is the ethical expression of man’s being, but it can never be governed by value. Rather, it precedes value as that which produces value, and must of course be rigorously distinguished from such things as self-complacency, self-sufficiency, and happiness. Self-recognition is not an action but rather the principle of action. Heidegger speaks of the everydayness of existence, that is, the primacy of Dasein. Self-recognition can be seen when this everydayness is purely taken up and the choices of the existent are unfolded and grasped in their essence. This is what I am referring to when I speak of “self-recognition.” It must always be grasped within the unconscious and irrational by tracing actions dimensionally back to their origin. As goes without saying, psychological interpretations are here completely invalid.
Seen in this way, self-recognition is precisely the night’s self-disclosure, immanence, and inner character. Because there is here true apprehension as based on experience, any negation through cyclical interaction is inapplicable. Thus it becomes clear that the self that experiences the night is ontologically privileged. The concrete experience of the night raises the questioner to the highest level. Nevertheless, we have not yet arrived at any conclusion but merely explained the notion of attitude. Keeping this notion in mind, let us now turn to the question of the night and man’s being.
The night is in no way the work of reason, nor is it deduced from experience. It is experience itself. The night is not an invited guest but rather the air that fills this room. It is that which thus brings all things into existence. Our judgments, expressions, lives, actions, fantasies: everything is brought into existence by the night. Hermeneutical experience: the blank space in the following lines is filled by these silent words. (I have prepared this blank space for the purpose of your own self-experience.)
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Man’s being is clearly revealed by these several lines of blank space. The night is that which thus brings things into existence.
(Let me provide a bit more explanation of this point in anticipation of the many criticisms that are likely to be directed at these words. Such criticisms will no doubt claim that the notion of “that which thus brings things into existence” represents a subjective, arbitrary judgment. What is “thus”? What is “brings things into existence”? What is “that which”? But these criticisms easily fall to the ground due to the self-experience of those who launch them. All we have to say here is that such experience is not merely our experience of the night but rather the experience of the night’s self-experience. The many conflicts unfolding here in this text; my silent dialogue with the imaginary reader who exists in my mind; your debate as reader with the imaginary me; the skeptical critic; the criticisms he launches; what I will write now; what I have written; the expression “thus brings things into existence”: all of these infiltrate the word “thus.” The phrase “brings things into existence” is enveloped within the judgment “thus,” but when it is experienced as the self-experience of the “thus,” it goes beyond the range of such criticisms as a new self-experience, that is, the productive principle of the experiential “thus.” Clearly this notion of “thus brings things into existence” eludes consciousness. Given that consciousness represents the law of restrictive interaction between one person and another, this notion can also be described as inexpressible. In other words, the night cannot be objectified by this expression, only symbolized. Precisely for this reason, any criticism of the phrase “that which” necessarily loses its effectiveness. “That which” does not indicate the night itself; rather, it merely signifies a symbolic expression. Thus what appears to the critic as a target reveals itself to be simply a mirage.)
How must we interpret man’s being in relation to the night as “that which thus brings things into existence”? It is clear both from the nature of the night and the ontological status required by man’s being that these two things are identical in essence. Yet where does their symbolic difference originate? This difference can be found in the fact that man’s being is the active expression itself of “thus brings things into existence,” whereas the night is enabled by the objectified method of the “that which.” The departure point and passage may have been different, but it is clear that ultimately these two things and the unfolding development of their passage perfectly correspond to each other. In other words, man’s being is the night and the night is man’s being.
However, we must not forget that the expression “man’s being” is an utter symbol. The people who stand before us as existents have not yet made their appearance. These people are enveloped in a fog of the unknown, they are a premonition of the ego. They experience things, they are the experienced cosmos; they are part of being-in-the-world, which exists prior to subject and object; they are action. They can be grasped only within their fall into this unfolding everydayness. When people are connected to the word “being,” even the foregoing meaning virtually disappears and the single phrase “man’s being” becomes an experiential symbol that cannot be broken down and discussed, like a chemical bond that cannot be reduced to its constitutive elements through any simple method since those elements have now bonded to become different from what they were originally.
Our point here is that reason, interpretation, and language are all meaningless. Man’s being is also a mere symbol, like the night. The interpretative attitude regarding language is necessary. Yet interpretation must not become analytic. What is needed is experiential interpretation, especially with regard to symbols.
We have thus discussed man’s being and the chaotic origin that brings into existence all manner of concepts and actions. In the foregoing four sections, I have explained my nature and attitude in this text.
SECTION II
1. BEING-IN-THE-WORLD
Longing for interiority, one becomes aware of the division between the chamber of the mind and the utterly indifferent external world. One then repeatedly tries to force open the eternal window separating these two. But the hand reaching out to open that window is always powerless, and like an incorporeal specter one must give up in dejection. This window is forever closed.
We are troubled by this division, but does the desired outside of the window really exist in the form in which we now see it? Does this window glass ever transparently allow for the figure of the external world as such to be sent into our solitary chamber? Is that variegated external world not merely an apparition that is skillfully depicted or traced out by this window glass? Is this window not a mirror that reflects our mind?
Is it not reasonable that we think this way? All rulers have now vanished, and even the self has lost its meaning as ruler. Like the “locus” defined by Aristotle as the internal surface that envelops things, only a cold, indifferent diamond remains in our hands: this diamond may be the primary intuition of experience and possibility, but it cannot be the cause of anything. In the realm of existence, we can harbor no hopes or expectations, like an exile on a deserted island. A diamond only pierces our mind with its hard, sharp edges. Come now, quietly return to your assigned chamber and look around. Is this window not the mirror that reflects our mind?
Surely anyone can see that this window is man’s being. As such, must we not also conceive the figure of the external world as seen (putatively) through that window as belonging to it? Regardless of whether or not that world exists, the particular restriction that it be seen through the window has already been added, and that window represents the experiential interpretation of man’s being. Because of this, the external world reveals itself to be nothing other than that which is glimpsed through our experiential interpretation. Precisely for this reason, the external world is “thus seen.” What is this “thus seen” if not the nature of the window? As that which is “thus seen,” the external world belongs to the window. An external world that did not belong to the window might of course also be possible. However, such world would never be “thus seen”; it would be forever unknown, nothing more than an irrelevant fantasy. For an immature soul, thinking about such a world would be complete reverie, a fleeting, naïve, and anguished longing, but this would be a clumsy or even harmful misapprehension. What could this external world as “thus seen” be if not the reflection of our minds? What could that window be if not the mirror that reflects this world?
Until now, however, the object of our thinking has been the figure of the external world. Yet this world does not only appear as a figure. The figure that exists outside, separated from the chamber of our mind, has now disappeared, but what of the meaning of the external world that is revealed together with the figure?
Of course the figure itself is a kind of meaning. Yet this meaning represents the meaning of the night as that in which the figure appears, which is completely different from the meaning of value that we are here problematizing. I am trying to explain the meaning of a kind of judgment, the content as opposed to the figure. This can also be described, in certain cases, as active.
Examining this closely, we find an unspeakably drastic transformation that begins suddenly in our soul or chamber of the mind. We suddenly realize that the meaning or content that is believed to appear strictly alongside the figure has at some point separated from it and is drifting in infinite space. It has sunk into an inaccessibly distant sky, a chaos where it mixes together with stars. Realizing this, we look around at the dark expanse, our skin crawling, as if awakening from a nightmare. The darkness suddenly appears horrible. The dark expanse constantly increases in depth and becomes heavier at every moment, appearing about to crush us. Thinking that it would certainly be possible to relax if a light were turned on, we rise to switch on the light.
Yet no relief comes to mind. Rather, we are beset by a terrible fear as we bitterly regret the fact that we didn’t endure the oppression in the darkness. What has happened? One imagined oneself sleeping quietly and safely ensconced behind solid wall when suddenly all walls vanish and one is alone floating adrift in the darkness. What fear can be greater than this?
But take courage! This courage will surely help you adjust to the dark. And you must question! Gaze into the darkness and ask what has happened!
When one thinks about it, meaning is always solitary. When it appears alongside a figure, that is less the nature of meaning than it is of man’s being. Meaning appears as man’s being and the night’s self-disclosure: it wanders among the solitary night together with value, it is a cluster of stars. Meaning is a constellation that takes the form of a spear. And the sharp tip of this spear pierces the various figures, finally cutting away the hostility of the external world, which had so heavily pressed in upon the surrounding chamber of our mind. The walls that we sadly accepted lost the external pressure that had hitherto maintained equilibrium, and with frightening speed expanded outward. They simultaneously lost all materiality, becoming part of the night. Although the cosmos floats in darkness, it confronted us without being in any way distant from us. The various figures were the media that filled the stars.
One after another, all figures are brought within the self when they come in contact with the solitary spear constellation. In order to see this, of course, one needs the light of unfolding. The chamber of the mind then expands increasingly outward. Before this unfolding deepens, the chamber of the mind functions as an intuition of an eternally fixed immobility: the external world as reflected in the window is enveloped in the sad light of dusk as the self’s own reflection as this self continues to reject all meaning and expectation. As the storm of unfolding gradually moves in the direction of purity, however, it finally destroys the walls that define the self as finite and the border between inside and outside that brings us into existence as “being-in the world.” The chamber of the mind thus comes to be dispersed in the infinite night of man’s being. As eternally unknown, the external world acutely provokes our longing. When we realize that the world’s brilliant coloration is nothing other than the radiant spear constellation that exists within it, the unknown external world loses its quality as mere figure and is reborn as a new element that is completely inseparable from its meaning within the infinitely expanded chamber of the mind. After so long, the stars then shine. And it is the darkness surrounding these stars that allows them to shine so brightly. We do not see stars; we see stars shining in the dark night.
Thus the self understood as a “being-in the world” expands to the level of “being in-the world.” Rilke conceived of Dinge, or things, as flowing with life and celebrated them in verse so grandly and beautifully because he accepted them with a love that inflamed the spear constellation shining in the dark night. Yes, heavy stars fall, as does the heavy, dark night. These are not something that can be seen; rather, they must be accepted.
Yet is the self as a “being in-the world” really the collection of various unfolding dimensions? What exactly is “being in-the world?” Is it truth? Or would that also be an illusory misplacement of cause and effect? Would it not be strange if our unfolding were to stop here? The night would vanish if our unfolding were to end. If we are to maintain the same standpoint as defined in section 1 above, then it would be absolutely impossible for us not to doubt this strange ending or midway point. Where is the mistake? Where is the end or inadequacy of this unfolding?
What could these questions be if not the tragedy of life? We are engulfed by a horrible premonition that the false mark of subject and object that erases all things in the darkness is burned into our forehead.
In fact, this begins in the following way: meaning was at a standstill. Like a thermal mass on thin ice, however, it quickly sank and disappeared. For there was clearly a mistake here. Had we not already enclosed some kind of affirmation within meaning? Weren’t we unable to distinguish meaning and value in the faint light, despite the fact that they belong to completely different constellations, which unfolded to this point and yet remained at a lower, impure dimension? Meaning and value, which are independent of each other, are elements of a cosmic structure; they do not emit the eternal light of truth. They represent (different) ways for chaos to disclose itself, as apprehended strictly by the experiential and symbolic intuition that is man’s being. Meaning must once again become the jewel of an uninhabited land that is completely indifferent to us. It must be raised to the level of man’s being in its endless unfolding.
But look! These stars separated from the figure more than they have ever done before. Meaning and figuration are of completely different dimensions: one vanishes on the basis of the other, while this other disappears from view if one fixes one’s gaze on the first. These two appear to coexist, but is it the case that Rilke’s Dinge, which are rendered possible strictly by this coexistence, are a dreamlike rapture that transcends all judgment?
However, this question discloses the following formula and is itself clarified by it: namely, Dasein represents a gap of countless different dimensions. And intuition consists of an elevated viewing of this multilayered, transparent plate glass. The night is precisely this lightless totality.
Seen in this way, the world increasingly reinforces its infinity together with man’s finitude. Although the world is man’s being, it is not man’s being. It never stops at the level of “being in-the world.” Man can never restrict or govern his being. Rather, it is this being that first assigns man the status of a being-in-the-world. The world is the totality, an infinity bound up with the night. In which case, wouldn’t it be “being-in the world” that actually comes to the fore? Yet the unfolding of a higher level of man’s being advances in and of itself ever higher, revolving endlessly around a circle. Man’s being remains neither at “being-in the world” nor “being in-the world,” but rather passes silently through a light that flickers rapidly from one to the other.
The night and world can be perceived only by the actant in his transformative actions, passing from one dimension to the next in the course of his unfolding. There is nothing that is at a standstill, for everything goes around. This rotation itself then vanishes as a fixed idea. All flows are a line of discontinuous points.
When the night is instantly captured as the intuition of experiential Dasein, both “being-in the world” and “being in-the world,” with their endlessly repeating movements, are sublated in that instant and become pure being-in-the-world as man’s being. Here being-in-the-world is no longer a combination of individual words. It is precisely in this sense that Rilke’s Dinge possess eternal objectivity. Being-in-the-world is the instantaneously concrete intuition of the night. The grievous reflective oppositions vanish, the wordless night closes in, and the eternal instant envelops the flesh.