User:Visarga/Heraclitus and Kashmir Shaivism

His philosophy mirrors the Kashmir Shaivism
Heraclitus was a forerunner of Kashmir Shaivism (a monistic idealistic philosophy that had its maximum during 700-1100 A.D.). In different cultures, epochs and countries, both systems converged on the same ideas:


 * adherence to non-duality from the ultimate perspective
 * "to God all things are fair and good and just"
 * "the A is both A and not-A"
 * the consistence of the world is mental
 * he refers to "the thought by which all things are steered through all things"
 * God is both material cause (like "pots are made of clay") of efficient cause (like "pots are made by the potter")
 * he describes the objective(exterior) reality in a constant state of flux; similarly, K.S. describes the world as a product of continuous acts of creation and dissolution
 * "everything is in a state of flux"
 * "simultaneously it forms and dissolves"
 * the pratibimba (reflection) and bheda-abheda (duality-cum-nonduality) concepts
 * "one is made up of all things and all things issue from the one"
 * the world is made of a series of ever more subtle cattegories (tattvas) born one of the previous one
 * "the death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water"
 * the K.S. theory of abhasa universe is seen as a series of instantaneous flashes
 * "each object must dissolve and be generated continually momentarily"
 * he perceived the nature in a mystical way, different from the common norm
 * quoted "nature likes to hide"
 * focus on "the word" (logos) as substrate is identical to the Kashmir Shaivism focus on paravak
 * Heraclitus seems to have been a mystic
 * he wandered the mountains ... making his diet of grass and herbs
 * he wrote philosophical texts just like the tantrics, encoding them so as not to be easy to read
 * Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" (asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it
 * both philosohies are panentheistic