The Mound

“Accordingly, even after this last and extreme step, the question may still be raised what that will, which manifests itself in the world and as the world, is ultimately and absolutely in itself; in other words, what it is quite apart from the fact that it manifests itself as will, or in general appears, that is to say, is known in general. This question can never be answered, because, as I have said, being-known of itself contradicts being-in-itself, and everything that is known is as such only phenomenon. But the possibility of this question shows that the thing-in-itself, which we know most immediately in the will, may have, entirely outside of all phenomenon, determinations, qualities, and modes of existence which for us are absolutely unknowable and incomprehensible and which then remain as the inner nature of the thing-in-itself.....”- Arthur Schopenhauer, the World as Will and Representation, Volume 2

Dismissing the question of what the being-in-itself (noumenon) of existence is, and beyond what is presented as being(s)-for-us (phenomenon) though that latter fills up the concatenation of sense data and cogitation we call the mind, is or may be, entirely practical, necessary, and ‘natural’. And yet, so long as the welter of phenomena included in the miraculous stream we call life, stirs up anxiety concerning it’s very existence in the first place, then the question of being-in-itself, the deep hidden spring of this stream, has meaning. Has meaning in spite of, or because, it is impervious to relative understanding.

Picture this -

An ancient burial mound is covered over by millennia, and countless cycles of floral growth and decay. Up from the dark earth of the mound emerge cowslips, daisies, and dandelions. Bluebells appear there in season too, under the crown of shaggy, stunted trees which often caps these mysterious mounds.

In a very leaky analogy, the relation of the foliage growing upon the mound to the contents of the burial chambers beneath, is like that of the phenomenon of being to its noumenon- in Schopenhauer’s terms, of the appearance of the will to the will in-itself.

What appears to our senses and mental functions (and that of which our senses and mental functions are themselves phenomena) is the blooming growth on the surface of the mound.

Attempting to decipher the historical significance of whatever may be the prehistoric remains of the burial chamber (if indeed that is what is within the mound) by studying the plant life on top is nearly as futile as attempting to objectify, grasp, and analyse the inner nature of being or the ‘self’ of reality. Certainly the weeds and flowers etc growing up from that earth are not unconnected to what lies beneath and within; quite the opposite. But it is certainly beyond mortal prowess to gaze upon the blossoms and know what the earth sustaining their lives veils.

And yet, each one of us has their root, home ground, and life-spring under such a mysterious and all pervading veil.

The Platonist philosopher, Plutarch, supplies a fitting (and I think, quite beautiful) formula to such a situation when he reports the inscription on a statue of Athena (or Isis) at Sais in Egypt as stating

“I am all that has been and is and shall be: and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle”