For a Metaphysics of 4TP (3): the inner climate of the search for Being in Dasein

"One cannot speak of Dasein without a confrontation with death. At that moment there are no more names, no more individuals: it is then that the essence of Dasein opens up. It is necessary, as Heidegger proposes, to rethink all concepts of politics, society, philosophy, culture and relations with nature from this radical and existential experience, from this thinking moment. Only from this existential space free of everything else is it possible to reconstruct a scientific ontology, a political ontology, a socio-cultural ontology... But always and only from this existential Awakening. And this Awakening is not a transcendent idea, but an immanent experience, which must once again become the root of politics'. [1]

Incipit

The themes related to the movements of the inner search for Being on the part of the Being-us, i.e. of the Dasein, which has realized in itself the consciousness of the reality of Being and seeks to attain it, to experience it in itself or to welcome it through its inner openness, to transfer to it, to identify with it, or otherwise, these are multiple themes that for the most part are not clearly identifiable and often, like the air one breathes but cannot see, fail to be crystallized in a critical reflection, as they lack the reality of being an experienced induction before becoming a reflexive deduction.

We will therefore attempt, with much modesty and profound humility, to offer you some insights into the inner climate of the Being's search for Being on the part of the Being-us, without claiming to be exhaustive or rather to boast false initiation or even more of ardent wisdom. But our precise intention is to be and to consider ourselves an Odyssean nobody and a sure nothing, who wants to trust exclusively in the authority of Martin Heidegger and in the mastery of his best interpreter, the philosopher Alexander Dugin, honoring ourselves to be in fieri of the latter an unknown pupil and an imperfect scholar. We thus rely on the inspiration of their inner strength, aware that we are only reflecting and describing here with the criteria of mystical anthropology what we have actually experienced, without the audacity to consider ourselves anything, since:

"The hardest, but also least deceptive touchstone for testing the genuine character and strength of a philosopher is whether he experiences immediately and from the ground up, in the being of the entity, the nearness of nothingness. He to whom this experience remains precluded stands definitively and hopelessly outside philosophy' [2].

We would like to point out that our making Dasein coincide - according to the dictates of Thomist philosophy - with the essence of the soul (also known as the conscious soul from Mystical Anthropology), which emanates from itself the intellect as pure presence, does not contradict but, in our humble opinion, complements what Prof. Dugin says about the intellect and its active part, quoting Heidegger and Aristotle in this sense:

"(...) Heidegger, on the other hand, is more interesting and profound. I studied his thought for years, writing four books on him. The important aspect of Dasein is that it describes man not as a given entity. We usually think of man using categories such as individual, class, society, nation, but these are only secondary forms. Wanting to define man at his deepest root, Dasein is what remains when we free him from all these cultural preconceptions. It is not very easy to understand it: one must carry out a radical destruction - or deconstruction - of all the socio-cultural, historical, religious (even traditional) aspects attributed to man. Dasein does not correspond to any of the definitions of man. It is not an individual, it is not collectivity, nor is it Soul, Spirit or Body: all these are secondary. Instead, it is a pure presence of the intellect, which only opens up when we are faced with death'. [3]

"We can place the 'centre' within us, within us. And this absolute internality coincides precisely with Aristotle's Radical Subject or active intellect. Aristotle, in his Treatise on the Soul, explained very well that the absolute centre of the soul is the active intellect and there are also other parts of the soul that are the parts of the passive intellect The active intellect with the passive intellect form the unity of interiority (...)'. [4]

The itinerary from space to infinity

The Dasein, the Being-us understood as the living human being in its deepest dimension as conscious soul, lives in space, inhabits many spaces, is the holder of spatiality. The individual and family space, the space of the local community, the space of the ethnos, of the nation and state in which it dwells, the space of friendships, interpersonal relations, work, study, sport, nature, recreation, and much more spatially characterize the presence of Dasein in the world.

But before all this exterior spatiality, Dasein is endowed with a great inner space tending in a certain sense towards infinity, both because Dasein is an image and likeness that is continuously created by Being (subsistentia) and because this Being-us is destined to contain Being in an immanent transcendence (praesentia).

Therefore, the Being-us, prior to this space, this set of spaces and subspaces that characterize its being-in-the-world, in its most abysmal substance coincides with the conscious soul, the Dasein is thus the conscious soul itself, that is, the deepest reality in the integrity of the psychosomatic anthropological complex.

And it is precisely when the Dasein, when the conscious soul through asceticism, meditation and prayer succeeds in freeing itself from the conditionings of body and mind and from the perennial body vs. mind conflict, that the Dasein itself awakens to itself, as if roused from the sleep of death and the torpor of the senses. Thus this Being-there (being-there) acquires self-consciousness and then discovers the enormous vastness of its own inner space, which may initially appear bewildering, before becoming familiar and habitual.

The Dasein thus makes its first inner journey towards Being, in search of Being. A journey from space to infinity, from his inner space towards infinity, in search of this infinity within himself of which Dasein never seems to be satiated. A search for love dictated mainly by the eros of the senses that in this journey must be purified, by that sensual attraction that in this first phase of the Dasein's awakening is a passion that drives the motionless motor of the conscious soul to want to possess Being perceived as infinite, an infinity that makes it groan in the impossibility of grasping it, of having it all within itself and dissolving in it. In proceeding on this journey, Dasein at a certain point undergoes an existential halt, at which point he clearly perceives that the measure of infinity is a measure contrary to that of space, that infinity is antagonistic to space, and that infinity is a black hole that devours space and into which Dasein must necessarily fall, be annihilated and then rise again like the phoenix to a life in which the senses no longer have dominion over him but are appeased and rebalanced.

Dasein's fall into the abyss of infinity gives rise to vacuity, to that primarily existential sense of emptiness that purifies his senses in the first terrible katharsis, an unbearable immersion in the pain of sensibility, emotionality, sentimentality that are thus humanized in the dominion of self. The final aspect, the limes of this ordeal, its positive part is the birth of the vacuum state, an attitude of emptiness of mind, of spontaneous absence of thoughts that allows the Dasein to sharpen its observation, to exercise quiet attention, necessary to become fully aware of the second existential dimension in which the Dasein itself lives and is immersed together with the spatial dimension, that is, the dimension of time, temporality.

The journey from time to eternity

Time is a tyrant. Time flies. Time never goes back but always moves forward. However, the Dasein awakened to itself and purified by the first katharsis space>infinity>emptiness, now lives towards the 'time dimension' through the existential condition of the hic et nunc, the here and now. This condition is natural and, at the same time, acquired by the habitus of the vacuum state, i.e. by a practice of mental emptiness that subsequently becomes innate, thus permeating every single breath and every moment of Dasein's life, going beyond the narrow period dedicated to meditative and devotional practices, and transforming itself into an existential act and attitude.

In this new status, the temporal dimension is not suspended but flows slowly, progressively increasing in Dasein the consciousness of self (being-here) and of every single inner and ad extra act he performs as Being-there, as being-in-the-world. In this condition of existential enstasis called immanence, a new journey of the Dasein, of the Being-there towards Being, a journey from the dimension of time to that of eternity, thus begins. The Being-us in fact, in a natural motion proper to its nature, perceives the precariousness and finiteness of its immanence, of its condition of enstasis, and seeks a way out.

From the condition of enstasis the Dasein now seeks the way to ecstasy, from immanence it seeks the path to transcendence, from the linearity of time it seeks the outlet to eternity. This second journey that Dasein makes from time to eternity, is a journey of love dictated by agape as the vector of desire of the motionless motor of the conscious soul, a desire therefore primarily altruistic in which the sincere desire to know Being prevails, but which is a desire combined with the still selfish hunger to possess this knowledge. This existential tension in which the legitimate longing for the sacred is mixed with the uncontrolled urge for the profane, this desire for knowledge in which light and shadow compete for space, will then be purified in the second katharsis, where the powers of the soul, i.e. memory, intellect, will, will, will be purged and finally reorganized towards an ordered knowledge of Being by the Being-us.

Here too, as has already been said of the infinite in relation to space, in this terrible second purification the Dasein undergoes a new existential halt, perceives that time and eternity are antagonistic, that time before eternity elides itself, that eternity is a chasm that swallows up the slow time of the here and now proper to the Dasein, dragging the same Dasein towards a new inner annihilation and in the direction of a subsequent rebirth. From this new rebirth, the Dasein, the Being-us who has undergone the purification of his powers, acquires the gift of vision, he is given by Being the faculty of seeing and knowing the Ideas, the archetypes, the symbols through which Being itself has generated the kosmos, has created all that exists on Earth and in the Universe. This cognitive vision, in which the power, the faculty of the active intellect prevails, will lead the Dasein to a further degree of self-consciousness, to a third journey that will be the passage from the vision of the transcendence of Being in its Ideas, to the presence of Being in the Being in multiple modalities.

The crossing from intellect to apophaticism

The Being-us, the Dasein is generated by Being. The Being-us tends by its very nature towards Being. The Being-us, being born to live in Being is powerfully attracted to Being, is violently fascinated and seduced by Being. For these reasons, the memory and will purified by the second katharsis urge ex natura sua the intellect if not to "see" Being directly - because this happens in the present condition only per spæculum et in ænigmitate, i.e. as in a mirror and in a confused way -, at least to "know" Being as far as the limited nature of the Being-us can. Thus Dasein begins its third journey, this time through the power of the intellect in its active part, a journey from intellect to non-intellect, from knowledge to the cloud of non-knowledge, from active intellect to apophasis (apophaticism).

Dasein, in its motionless motor of conscious soul, is propelled by its violent hunger to know Being on this new journey of love through the inner impulse of philia, through the insuppressible desire for an everlasting friendship capable of transforming itself into permanent and transforming union. This vocation to Being on the part of Dasein, this quest for adhesion, conformity, union, unity, the disappearance of the Being-us into Being is so strong and violent because it represents the very essence of Dasein, or rather its deepest substance, which is love open to Love, it is openness to love, it is the place of encounter and marriage, it is that part of Dasein itself, of the very essence of the conscious soul that is called spiritus (spirit) by mystical anthropology, which takes up and perfects from a semantic point of view experimental notions of natural and theistic mysticism.

But for this to happen, a third purification is required, or rather a total and integral emptying of Dasein, a kenosis capable of emptying the Being-us, the conscious soul in its very essence, an emptying that is in its reality a death, the mystical death of the Being-us. A death that begins when the active intellect realizes its inability to know Being, because its logos stops before the cloud of non-knowledge, it stops before the inability to conceive and understand the reality proper to Being. Thus, beginning to wander without more in the unconventional and mysterious realm of apophaticism, the active intellect naturally returns to a state of passivity, regresses into the passive intellect by switching off. While the passive intellect re-enters the primordial and lively chaos of the soul's luminous and conscious essence, that is, into the depths of its Dasein. So the intellect, in its active and passive complexity, makes a kind of journey contrary to its outward emanation from the essence of the soul.

In kenosis, however, this third, terrible purification, the total emptying of which we speak concerns primarily the essence of the soul, the very essence of Dasein, which, before the force of the unknowable Being, mystically dies. That is, it throws itself into the depths of the bottomless depths of itself, into the Urgrund, in a kind of total abandonment that appears as a necessary and apparent suicide of the conscious soul, while body and mind continue their usual biological, emotional and rational life with great human fatigue.

In this metaphysical and mystical death, Dasein knows Nothingness, Nihil, as the journey of the active intellect towards apophasis leads to negation, intellect and apophasis are antagonistic, apophasis is a vortex that sucks in and annihilates the intellect, hurling it into the essence of the soul, and that and this into the primordial chaos of its own Urgrund where Nothingness appears to be the root of Being-ness and Being manifests itself as Nothingness, because Being contains within itself Nothingness which is not a lack of Being but is the unknowable part of Being to Being-ness, the unmanifest part of Being to Dasein, at least during its earthly life. In this way, Dasein, in this experiencing of Nothingness, fully experiences annihilation, kenosis to the point of annihilation, its being-for-death. In the successive stages of Dasein's awakening, we find in temporal progression: an infinity that has already devoured space (first katharsis), an eternity that has already annihilated time (second katharsis) and now an apophasis that annihilates Being-ness (final kenosis).

But the Urgrund, the bottomless bottom as the unmeasurable capacity of Dasein itself, hence as the a-spatial vastness of the conscious soul itself, proves in its abyssality to be infinite and eternal, hence immortal, living forever, as the image and likeness of the Being who generated it. From this experience of Nothingness, from this atrocious nihilism, from this condition of permanent nihilism, Dasein is destined once again to resurrect, because Dasein is itself infinite, eternal and apophatic, kneaded with Being and Nothingness since it was generated, since it was therefore created by Being itself. And by resurrecting, the Being can see Being, it finds itself in the territory of the Event (Ereignis) that it contemplates and from which it is contemplated, in an obscure and reciprocal interpenetration that is simultaneously absence and fruition, clear vision of Nothingness and obscure perception of Being, being-for-death and Being-ness in Being, all in the mysteriousness of the Event, as a possible limit in this human life. This, then, seems to be for Dasein the ontological limes of his metaphysical experience of Being.

Conclusion

A purely metaphysical reading of the writings of the Apostle John - the great mystic, the one who laid his head on Christ's heart at the Last Supper -, a reading therefore that does not go beyond the demonstration of God's existence as its epistemological limit, nevertheless opens us up to the mystery of the beyond. It expands us into the mystery of being-for-life that overcomes being-for-death, it initiates us into the mysteries of the future contemplation of Being-in-being, finally free and liberated from the "limit" of the knowledge of Being itself, which for us will be the cause and source of infinite and joyful happiness. Indeed, the holy writer of Revelation declares with mystical and divine afflatus:

"Beloved, even now we are children of God, but what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We know, however, that when he is manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." [5]

Amen!

[1] Andrea Scarabelli, Article in the newspaper il Giornale: Aleksandr Dugin: "Evola, Populism and the Fourth Political Theory",

[2] Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche (edited by Franco Volpi), Adelphi, Milan 1996, p. 382.

[3] Ibidem, Art. cit.

[4] From Alexander Dugin's speech at the online conference POLIS E IMPERO. With the participation of Lorenzo Maria Pacini, Editor-in-Chief of Idee&Azione, Italian Referent of the MIE - International Eurasianist Movement, and with Giacomo Maria Prati, talented writer and collaborator of Idee&Azione. Event recorded on 16 July 2021, on the Idee&Azione YouTube Channel