Nietzsche – overcoming myself

Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19^th century philosopher, denies the existence of a transcendent or divine reality that lies beyond the material world. Nevertheless, the idea of transcending plays an important role in his philosophy – in the form of self-transcending, Self-transcending, or self-overcoming, means going beyond my nature and creating my self, my values, my life.

For Nietzsche, our natural self is raw materials: chaotic needs and drives and desires. Our challenge in life is to go beyond this primary material by molding it, shaping it, giving it style. In this sense we are the artistic creators of our own lives, but we are also the creation itself.

Thus, our task is to overcome ourselves and be a self-creation, or an ‘over-man’. Indeed, the noble life – the life of the over-man – is a constant process of passionate and intense self-overcoming. As Nietzsche says in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, man is a rope over the abyss, a constant going across.

This process is extremely difficult. People are often too weak, lazy, and conformist for this dangerous and intensive struggle of self-overcoming. We often opt for comfort and safety and want to be like others. In this sense, the over-man not only overcomes his natural animalistic energies, but also the herd-animal in him, the ‘sheep’ that wants to follow the herd.

***

“Such different approaches!” Annette remarks. “But there is also a similarity: All these thinkers are dissatisfied with ordinary life. They want something higher, something more real.”

“An interesting point, Annette. And they seek it in different ways: through mystical journeys, through contemplation, through symbols, by being authentic, by overcoming our lower drives and needs.”

For a few minutes Linda and Annette discuss this. Then Linda says, “So far, Annette, we have been thinking about these texts from the perspective of our ordinary concepts and opinions. This kind of thinking is fine, but it has its limitations. It expresses only one way of understanding, one specific ‘voice’. There are other ways of understanding, based on different concepts, different assumptions, different logical connections.”

“But, Linda, I can’t think of any other ‘voices’ in me, except for my ordinary way of thinking and understanding.”

“You are right, Annette. Normally we are so immersed in our familiar attitudes that we are not aware of other fountains of understanding, other sources of ‘voices’, other ‘voices’ of reality. It isn’t easy to connect to those other fountains. Our everyday patterns of thought and emotion ignore and suppress them. The result is that we identify ourselves with our ordinary ‘voice’, with our ordinary way of understanding. Today let’s invite other ‘voices’ into ourselves. Let us open inside ourselves an inner space and let them to speak in us.”

“Are you talking about meditation?”

“I am talking more generally about philosophical contemplation. Philosophical contemplation means that we listen to other ‘voices’, other than the ordinary ones we already know from everyday life. One way to do it is to use a text that touches us. Did anything touch you in the five approaches to transcending?”

“Yes, Jaspers’ idea that I can connect to something beyond myself only when I am myself. I am not sure why this idea touched me - I don’t believe in God. His ‘beyond’ is not my ‘beyond’.”

“Good. Let’s read a couple of paragraphs from Jaspers and invite into ourselves a different way of understanding. I’d like to teach you a text-meditation that is based on an ancient technique called Lectio Divina. Today we will do the simplest version. Some other time I will teach you more complex ways of doing it.”

Linda now instructs Annette to calm her mind. Then she gives her an excerpt from Jaspers, and asks her to read the text very slowly. “When you read, open a space inside you for the text to speak. Try to understand it, but don’t impose your ideas on it. Push aside your thoughts and opinions, and just listen to what the words say to you.”

Annette reads very slowly and quietly, almost whispering:

“Reading ciphers is so unlike comprehending a being independent of me, that it is quite impossible unless I am myself… In my actions – in resistance, success, failure, and loss… I have the experiences in which I hear the cipher. What happens, and what I do in it, is like question and answer. I hear from what happens to me, by reacting to it. My wrestling with myself and with things is a wrestling for transcendence… What I grasp in reading ciphers of transcendence is thus a being I hear by STRUGGLING for it. It is indeed only with transcendent being that I have a sense of being proper; there alone do I find peace. But I am always back in restless struggle, am forsaken like someone lost; I lose myself when I lose contact with being.” (PHILOSOPHY, Volume 3, Springer-Verlag 1956, pp. 131-133).

“That’s enough, Annette. Did any part of this text strike you?”

“Yes, the part that says: ‘It is indeed only with transcendent being that I have a sense of being proper; there alone do I find peace.’ I felt that it said to me that I am myself only when I am beyond myself. When I am stuck in my narrow self, when I am busy with my personal concerns, I am not really myself. This is perhaps not what Jaspers meant, but it’s what the words mean to me.”

“Good. Now focus on this paragraph, and again let the text to speak in you. Read it several times and just listen inwardly to the ‘voice’ that speaks to you. You can also ask questions if you want.”

Annette slowly reads three or four times. After a while Linda asks, “Can you remember moments in the past when this ‘voice’ spoke in you?”

“Yes, last week, in a middle of a very busy day. It was the end of the semester, and I had some very important exams. I studied from morning to midnight, and I was very pressured, but also bored to death. I couldn’t stand it anymore. And then I looked outside my window and saw a bird on a tree. And suddenly I felt that life is much bigger than my exams, much wider than my boredom – that life includes not only me, but also this bird, and the tree, and all the birds in this city, and all the trees in the world. I saw that I am just one little atom in a big ocean. I felt very peaceful. My anxiety and boredom were no longer the center of the world. I returned to my books, and for the rest of the day I continued studying, but without the pressure. I can’t explain it. I felt as if I was no longer only Annette. I was more than Annette, I was with the entire world, and yet I was very much myself.”

“That is a very beautiful voice, Annette. Let’s explore it together.”

“You mean analyze it?”

“Later, Annette. First I suggest that you ‘listen’ to it a little more. Invite it to speak in you. Push aside the everyday Annette, your everyday way of understanding, and let this other ‘voice’ speak. Can you connect to it?”

“Yes, I think I can.”

“Good, so keep yourself connected, and let’s talk about yourself, about your boredom, about life in general. Let’s hear what this other Annette has to say.”

Afterwards Linda and Annette analyze that new voice, its assumptions, its inner logic, its language. In a later meeting Annette will return to that voice, and perhaps will find additional voices.

Linda explains that in philo-sophical practice it is not enough to explore our existing patterns of understanding, because we also want to go beyond them towards greater horizons. It is not enough to listen to the ‘voice’ of our small perimeter, we also want to open ourselves to other voices of human reality.

“There is a point where you are no longer just your ordinary ‘voice’. The walls of your narrow world crack, and dormant fountains of new voices awaken. Getting to this breaking point is not just a matter of talking and analyzing. It is a matter of way of being. That’s why philo-sophia is not just philosophy. Voices are much more than ideas, because they also come from fountains of life that animate them. Therefore, inviting a new voice into yourself is much more than theorizing – it is opening a space inside you, attending to new experiences and new voices, receiving them, and engaging them.

“This is the point of rupture: You no longer belong to any specific voice, because you are with all the voices of reality. Your psychology may continue to function in the same old patterns, but your understanding is now open to the many fountains of understanding, of life, of plenitude. This is the point of Sophia.”