Spinoza’s Spiritual Path
Kees Boukema
Few hard facts are known about the life of Baruch de Spinoza (1632 – 1677), the only truly important Dutch philosopher. Nevertheless, a new biography came out ‘Spinoza, Life & Legacy’ [Oxford University Press, 2023] of more than 1.300 pages by Jonathan Israel, an expert on Spinoza and emeritus professor of modern history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A..
That Israel has great appreciation and respect for Spinoza was already evident from his monograph ‘Radical Enlightenment‘, published in 2001. There he demonstrates that Spinoza played a prominent role in the history of the European Enlightenment. ‘Study of the original material’ led him to the conclusion that ‘Spinoza and spinozism in fact formed the intellectual backbone of the European Radical Enlightenment.’
For this biography, Israel analyzed Spinoza’s work and correspondence. He consulted many documents and chronicles from that time and introduces the reader to the people with whom Spinoza maintained contact. All this in the context of the social and religious themes of what is called the ‘Golden Age’.
At the end of the ‘Ethica’, in which he unfolds his most important insights, Spinoza wrote: “With this I have settled everything I wanted to argue about the power of the Spirit over the affections and about the Freedom of the Spirit […] . Even though the road that I showed leads there seems very difficult, it can nevertheless be found. It must certainly be difficult, something that is so rarely encountered. For if salvation was within reach and could be achieved without great effort, how is it possible that it is overlooked by almost everyone? But everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare”.
What makes the path that Spinoza talks about so difficult? In any case, it is a path that cannot be combined with what plays such a major role in ‘ordinary’ life, namely: the pursuit of money, pleasure and prestige. Pursuit of this makes so much demand on a person that he or she does not even get around to other things. ‘Experience had taught him that.’, Spinoza writes in an unfinished manuscript that was found in his estate: ‘Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione’. [See: Korte Geschriften (K.G.) p. 437 – 493 and W.N.A. Klever, Spinoza, Verhandeling over de verbetering van het verstand en de beste methode om de werkelijkheid te leren kennen, 1986, p. 61 et seq.]
According to Spinoza, one would do well to observe a number of rules of life: ‘Adapt yourself in speech and action to the comprehension of the common man, and enjoy life only to the extent that this is necessary for the preservation of health, not acquiring more money than is necessary for subsistence and adhering to the customs of the state. At least, insofar as this does not get in the way of the goal.’ That goal is not to ‘seek the ‘truth’, but to ‘achieve a true good’, namely: ‘the consciousness of the unity of the soul with all Nature’. “All our actions and thoughts must be directed towards this.”
“Our happiness or unhappiness depends on the nature of the object of our love. Fear, hatred and jealousy are caused by focusing our love on that which is ephemeral.”(…..) “The love of that which is eternal and infinite nourishes the soul with pure joy.” The longer his mind pondered on these things and began to know the true good, the more often and for a longer period his mind proved able to release its attachments: ‘the desire for money, pleasure and prestige’.
In order to understand and judge things, the mind must first be made suitable for acquiring four types of knowledge:
Knowledge based on ‘hearsay’;
Knowledge that he gains in daily life through his own experience;
Knowledge that he can acquire with the help of his mind and
Knowledge about the essence of things, which comes to him through ‘intuition’.
Knowledge from ‘hearsay’ can be taken for ‘notification’.
The knowledge that a person acquires in the course of his life is fragmentary, often superficial and sometimes colored by emotions and mixed with assessments of usefulness and disadvantage. This subjective knowledge can be purified with the help of intellectual self-reflection and analysis (ratio).
One acquires knowledge about the essence of a thing if, from the mere fact that one knows something, one also knows what it means to know that thing. For example: By understanding the nature of the soul, one also knows that it is one with the body. “This way of knowledge makes us understand the essence of a thing, without danger of error. So we have to use her as much as possible.”
Spinoza calls this way of knowing ‘intuitive knowledge’. With reason we can get to know the qualities of things. Intuition sees through the nature of things: the phenomena as they really are [Ethica, II, proposition 40. Note. 2]. Through intuition we see the unity of everything; the All-One, which manifests itself in the countless, finite things [Ethica, I, prop.16].
In his essay “When the many become one”, Swami Ashokananda compares this insight with the experience of someone who sees glittering light in various rain puddles and, looking up, notices that they are all reflections of one and the same sun (Vedanta Society of Northern California, 1987, p. 5/6).
“The knowledge of the eternal and infinite being of God, which is contained in every conception, is adequate and perfect,” writes Spinoza [‘Ethica’ II, prop. 46] and is “available to everyone. Man has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and endless being of God and there is a way to become aware of this” [‘Ethica’ II, prop. 47].
Now it’s clear why Spinoza calls this path ‘very difficult’: It requires an ascetic life, completely devoted to the attainment of a true good: The consciousness of the soul’s unity with all Nature. This means: ‘Live like a mystic.’ A mystic is, described in the dictionary as: ‘Someone who ‘passionately strives for union of his soul with God (mysticism), through pious reflection (contemplation).’ [See: Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticisme, 1991 en Jan Knol, ‘Spinoza’s intuitie’, Wereldbibliotheek Amsterdam, 2009, p. 115-119].
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Mr Kees Boukema is a deeply learned scholar in Vedanta, comparative religions and history. He has written and translated several books. He is a regular contributor to our magazine and each month he presents some new idea, some unknown fact.