Mo I
From Aryez
Introduction
Mo I is an Aryezi philosophical work. It is in conversation form, between Akhi the philosopher and some companions. It is named after one of them, Mo. Topics covered include the purpose of life, the afterlife, the importance of spiritual health, and the existence of God.
Characters: Akhi, Mo, Mika, Darsh
Text
Mo: How can I live a happy life or at least a life where I can be at peace with myself?
Akhi: It seems to me that for a person to live a happy life, fulfilling life, or at least a life in which he isn’t torn apart by inner or outer torment, he has to be healthy. Now, when I say healthy, I mean healthy in a variety of ways. He must be healthy emotionally, physically, mentally (academically), and spiritually. If any of these are not healthy, a man will feel sick in some way or the other, but he will feel well if he takes care of his health properly. It follows that an increase in the health of one of these will lead to a general increase of will-power and happiness, which will produce an increase in the other types of health as well. Likewise, a decrease or sickness of one health will cause a more general sickness. Thus, one doesn’t have to excel at everything in order to keep his entire self healthy. An athlete may start on the physical, which he knows best, and then acquire the other types of health by constantly keeping his physique healthy. But it is important to remain healthy in all four areas, lest one wishes to develop a sickness of the soul. It is especially important to consider the health of the spirit.
Mo: Why is that so?
Akhi: Because the spirit is the bread of life. Man cannot survive on food and water alone. If the spirit is not healthy, then the entire body will suffer. It may occur slowly, but it will happen. And that feeling is a slow torment, a torture. Closely connected is mental health. Mental health involves the use of logic and the use of the brain to not only process knowledge, but to figure out important questions regarding life. The spirit requires knowledge of questions involving life, for if the spirit is unsure, it will be in torment, and life will be hell.
Darsh: And is there even a point to life?
Akhi: I’ve often wondered that myself. If life has no point to it, than that means everything happens randomly, and for no reason at all. If that’s the case, then no matter what we do has any real meaning, will affect anything on the grand scale of things, and good and evil will be meaningless. So really there would be no point to our existence. If we have no point, why do we need to exist? We should all just get up right now, find the nearest knife, gun, or roof, and terminate ourselves right now.
Darsh: But that is not the case.
Akhi: True. Either most people just love their lives so much and fear to lose it, or they don’t believe that life has no meaning. The first answer is simply a matter of cowardice, but it seems to me that most people actually believe that there is a point to life. I wonder what it is.
Mika: It maybe something to do with God.
Akhi: I concur that that’s part of the explanation. If there is no point in life, things just happened randomly. If things happened randomly, with no purpose, there is no need to speak of “why” or “how” or of time or space, or anything, because things just are. Assuming then, things don’t just happen randomly, there has to be a prime cause, or a purpose to them. The only thing that is a prime mover or gives purpose to the entire Universe as a whole is the concept we call God. Therefore, we have concluded that if there is a purpose to life, God exists, and we have a good reason to continue existing. If there isn’t, God doesn’t exist, and we should kill ourselves. Therefore it is important to determine 1) If there is a purpose to life, which requires finding first a way to do so, and 2) If there is a purpose, what it is, and once we know what is it, 3) How we can achieve it. I think that if we’re able to find a specific purpose to life, it means there is a purpose to life, because we obviously found one; or if we find God, we can work backwards and find a purpose to life (I think I can find God, both through proof and faith, but how I can is a topic for another time). But if we continuously look for one and don’t find one, then there is none. So we must being looking. And if we find that there is no purpose, we should all just enjoy our lives for a while, for whatever it’s worth, and then die, knowing we didn’t matter. And even if there is a purpose, death is nothing, because death is just a matter of physical termination: while we are alive, death hasn’t come to us so we shouldn’t worry, and once we’re dead, we’re already physically terminated, so we can’t worry about something that’s already happened, and we wouldn’t feel pain because pain is physical and the physical is gone.
Mo: So what do you think happens after death then?
Darsh: Since I happen to believe that human experience is entirely physical, our consciousness comes into being when we’re born and finishes when we die. There is no afterlife. Death is a great nothingness, a complete void, devoid of all thought or anything. So it’s nothing to worry about, since we can’t even think about it once we’re gone.
Mika: I think that heaven and hell exist. Those who do good deeds and in general live good lives will go to heaven, while those who do bad deeds will go to hell. In hell, they will burn in a fire and will be tormented by demons or by the devil. In heaven, they will live in a sort of paradise, live with angels, and meet God. The law of karma affects the afterlife, when a person’s deeds speak for themselves in regards to the person’s placement after death.
Akhi: Sadly, I have to reject both theories. The first degrades something as rich and complex as our minds; it is unlikely that such a complex thing is non-physical, and thus subject to void; consciousness must involve some kind of higher than physical connection, something which isn’t just voided like that. As for the second theory, it’s essentially on the same level as a fairy tale or a myth, because it is so arbitrarily made up without sound reasoning, proof, or anything. Nor do I think the consciousness takes the form of individualized souls that have a one to one correspondence with bodies, although I think the consciousness exists after death, and every individual’s consciousness grows throughout their life; in effect, life is the womb of the consciousness, which is born after death. Nor do I believe in the existence of heaven or hell, but of one afterlife, since all of humanity is a single unit, not two separate units. A person’s deeds will affect the state of his consciousness after death; therefore a person who commits bad deeds will be in a sort of hell- mental torment, and vice versa for a person who commits good deeds. But as the consciousness continues to grow, this torment will give way, but if it doesn’t, then the person will remain in a hell state. So it’s all a matter of choice, to move beyond hell. Beyond this, I have no idea what happens to the consciousness after death, where it does, and in what state it is in. I have to figure it out after meditating on it.
Mo: Back to the original question, what is the point of life?
Akhi: That too, I will have to figure out. We will all resume our discussion when we next meet. Till then, we should ponder these questions and hope to find answers, although not all questions can be answered so fast or decisively. That is why it is important to meditate or think deeply on life, so that perhaps we can arrive at solutions. But this is enough thinking for one day. Come let’s go get food.
Darsh: Let’s.
Mika: Good, for I desire to eat.
Mo: I concur. That’s a good idea.
