Absolute Subjectivity

From Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев, Nikolai Berdyaev, Russian Orthodox theologian and existential philosopher:


'Spirit is never an object; nor is spiritual reality an objective one. In the so-called objective world there is no such nature, thing, or objective reality as spirit. Hence it is easy to deny the reality of spirit. God is spirit because he is not object, because he is subject....In objectification there are no primal realities, but only symbols [emphasis mine]. The objective spirit is merely a symbolism of spirit. Spirit [as absolute subject] is realistic while culture and social life are symbolical. In the object there is never any reality, but only the symbol of reality. The subject alone has reality'.


I've been deeply entranced recently by the inward turn, spoken of by the mystics, and the means by which symbol is absorbed into a deepened, stilled sense - where symbol becomes reality. To attempt to explain this, one way to view the sacraments, in the Christian tradition, is not as symbol, but as living reality - the bread and the wine becoming the skeleton, the bare naked bones, of spirit, present, here manifest on earth. One way to think of anamnesis is not just as memory of the stories and travails of Jesus' life, but through manifest existence as replicated in memory, through time, all universally is present, as sacred, each moment both revealed and unrevealed, as the unborn, unbegotten, unknown One.


It's not the case that all traditions point in the same direction. It is the case that at a certain level, the reality that is revealed becomes subsumed into an all encompassing vista - and there is a realisation beyond this (beyond Witness), where the sense of vista is removed, and the never-not-present eternally begotten now permeates consciousness.


This is my first real attempt at writing about some of the themes here from my own perspective. I apologise to the extent that my mangled use of English (and perhaps Russian) may have infringed upon your sensibilities.

Quote sourced from:

Wilber, K. (1977). The Spectrum of Consciousness. Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House. p. 82.