August ‘24 1-to-1 Wiseletter (Norman Austin)
In August's 1-to-1 Wiseletter, I'll be breaking down a quote from Norman Austin, a classics professor at the University of Arizona.
Quote
Consciousness, the myths tell us, is nature's crown, and yet for us the crown is all thorns.
-Meaning and Being in Myth
Norman Austin, an under-celebrated mind of our time, wrote this brilliant statement over three decades ago.
The crown of consciousness has been laid upon our heads. And it is in so many ways unbearable. In our lives we shoulder weighty moral and practical responsibilities, demands, and conundrums: children, jobs, relationships, dying parents. To be aware of being aware of life is, as some say, the unbearable burden of being.
In the West, the story of consciousness starts with the Garden of Eden. At its center is a tree of knowledge bearing fruit that confers awareness of opposites. It's the place where intellect was birthed from instinct, the great separation, and the first sin. Banished from instinctual paradise, the intellect now "wanders in a desolate place," Austin tells us, "searching for itself but finding only the Other." (pg 194, Meaning and Being in Myth)
Photo Credit: Veronica Reverse
The words conscience and conscious share the same root, con or cum, meaning "with" or "together," and scire "to know" or "to see." The root meaning of consciousness and conscience therefore means "to know with" or "see together." Notably, the word science by itself means "to know" or "to see" without an other or "withness." (pg 36, The Creation of Consciousness, Edward F. Edinger). This etymology tells us that science is a one-sided pursuit of knowledge, thorough and revealing to a certain degree, yes, but lacking "withness" and therefore ever incomplete.
In its final analysis, consciousness is a calling to become a complete individual by finding the Other. It is the most difficult task nature puts on any of her children. She calls us to become whole, to come to terms with our inner division, our darkness; to first know and then embrace our opposite.
The myth of Eden is a cipher to jump our minds over the distraction of living to a universal epiphany of full return.
In its first moment in Eden, Consciousness dis-members from the Other and is forced to wander through an exterior desert. In its final moment, parched from its journey in the desert, Consciousness finds the promised land and drinks from the fountain of youth. It re-members itself with the Other, returning home as the prodigal son does. Over and over again on the wheel of existence, it forgets and finds itself.
The purpose of life is to find what you've always been looking for.
QUESTION
What do you think Norman Austin means by the 'Other'?
Cheers,
John
