THE AFRICAN SAGE

I already indicated that I believe in St. John’s assertion that God is Love. Truly, then, it must occur to you that development anticipates no more than being in God, with God and for God. For those of you who do not trust in the belief in a deity, I will placate you by using words like ‘the all in all’. Like it or not, we refer to the same reality, we just have to affirm higher powers. Like it or not, we just have to affirm the influence of those powers on us and around us. Like it or not, we just have to move in the direction of them higher powers, if we are to live to the full i.e. as truly human, without pretense. As human beings we are contingents; limited beings. We by necessity require the help, sustenance and support of the higher powers. However, unlike any other thing that is totally and helplessly dependent, the benevolent higher powers allowed us capacity for auto-determination. We have rational capacity, which enables us capacity to exercise free will. Our rational c...

Being For: The perfect one is in an intimate relation with those that are from Him/Her. This relationship can never be broken because by all means the creatures just have to depend on Him and He just has to be there for them. It cannot be otherwise because in self, we are all beings for others. This is an effect that follows from the Cause, who by nature, we would say, is “Being-For” in totality. His/Her being is for no more than being for us the creatures. He/she or It is the necessary being on which all dependents, limited or imperfect beings depend. How best can we then describe our relationship with this being who is for us in totality? In the Bible, St. Paul having thought about the ways in which we express our ‘being-for ness’ says that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a brother/sister. Taking from that, we can decipher that only love allows us contingents to be for others even to the extend of accepting death. If that is the case, and we already know...

The Human Soul: Hope is an important aspect of living but before we consider it in depth, we better delve a little bit into what we mean by soul; a consideration that will help us understand and make clear to ourselves of what hope should consist and on what it should be grounded. Hope, love, faith, trust, peace, confidence, and many others in that order of things belong to the faculties of the soul. A healthy soul exhibits all the mentioned and others like prudence, modesty, justice, temperance, austerity etc. What is ‘soul’? Where is it located and from where does it come? Of what nature is it? And why is it? To answer this question I have to try and recall my experience as a being with soul or what I have heard about the soul. Is ‘soul’ a being conjured up by reason but not ‘real’ i.e. ‘out there now’? I have already talked of recalling my experience as an individual with a soul; therefore, I am already convinced about its not being a fabrication by reason. I could say that t...