Merab Mamardashvili: Psychological Topology of the Path, Lecture 7
On April 17, 1984—40 years ago—Merab Mamardashvili delivered the seventh lecture of the course "Psychological Topology of the Path" at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Tbilisi State University.
0:00 - CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE PLACE AND TIME OF THIS PLACE
the labor of life, detachment, standing, the sequence A B C
10:26 - PROPERTIES OF ALL MEANING (UNDERSTANDING)
the structure of consciousness, in which meaning is assumed only tomorrow
12:57 - PROPERTY OF HUMAN MORALITY AND ETHICS
14:43 - TIME AS A SEQUENCE vs. TIME AS A MOMENT, INSIDE WHICH THE WHOLE WORLD FITTS = TIME AS A HUMAN PLACE
There is time as Sequence, and there is time and place—the time of the evangelical prayer is a moment—"for a little while the light is with you"—while there is light, work.
Something essential in understanding must occur (if it does) outside this sequence A B C
"It is not the city of Rome that lives among the centuries // but man's place in the Universe."
Ritualization of living states—the Duke of Guermantes obeyed "the unspent reserve of bows on his knees."
"He who pays attention to facts risks failing to see the laws."
Acts, sequence—are endless—to stop infinity—empirical time is a bad infinity.
A renewed living human state, without which "houses and altars are worthy of contempt, like wretched rubbish." You can pray before the altar as much as you like—nothing will happen. If there is nothing else...
32:13 - THE PHENOMENA OF GOOD, EVIL, AND UNDERSTANDING
Phenomena of understanding and goodness - an unknown homeland - the persistence of human effort
41:38 - THE ETERNAL ACT. INFINITE OBJECTS
Poetry as a sensation and feeling of one's own existence...
Something whose name is its existence (incidentally, this is how God was defined in theology)..
Strange duration/continuity - distinct from empirical duration and continuity - life is an effort in time - Christ's agony lasts forever and one cannot sleep during it - events that eternally co-exist - eternally lasting acts...
As the Arab mystics said, an attribute has no second moment. And Descartes, completely independently of them, repeated this theory, since it probably belongs to no one, just as the Universe belongs to no one, but is what it is, and if you see it, then it is...
1:03:28 - WHAT IS NOW HAPPENING TO US IS ETERNAL LIFE
If you are resurrected, it is in this life, and if you are not resurrected in it, you will never be resurrected—unless you have restored living states within this ongoing act. For example, he fell asleep, as the apostles did—if they had fallen asleep forever, that is, if they had completely jumped out of this act, they would not have been resurrected. In this topography of our spiritual life, resurrection occurs not after life, but in this life. Therefore, Proust cautiously says that the other life is not after this one, but beyond. "Beyond" refers to this vertical section. Chaadaev: You [in vain] think that a undertaker's shovel separates you from another life - everything is here.
1:13:09 - THE ESSENCE OF THE NON-VERBAL ROOT OF OUR BEING
The non-verbal root of our being is the common root of humanity - if we live, then we live only one life.
Dante, New Life - "Everything is at an equal distance from me, but for some reason you are not."
Chaadaev, "You will have to create everything for yourself, right down to the air you breathe, right down to the soil beneath your feet."
The duration of human life in that very vertical dimension.
Invent as many laws as you want - if there are no people who uphold the law, there will be nothing.
Joachim of Fiore.
To be stuck in the unfulfilled, the undone, the unfulfilled.
Norms must grow through their internal non-verbal root of one's own personal experience - that which is not purchased by one's own, personal A test, fragile, shaky, and can collapse at any moment.
Art as a tool for changing life in this life, not some kind of unnecessary add-on.
A Gospel man in the morning = a Renaissance man.
Engagement