A TRANSVALUATED OVERALL PICTURE

1. At one time the self counted for more than the not-self and selflessness. Then the not-self and selflessness came to displace the self or, rather, to co-exist with an egocentric transmutation of self. It remains to be seen whether, in future, the not-self and selflessness are displaced by the self, albeit in terms of a self which owes more to the omega of things than ever it does to the alpha.

2. That is just the point! At one time the self was alpha-stemming and absolutist on an instinctive basis which one can equate with the id, the most basic manifestation of self. Then the world intervened and such a self found itself eclipsed by the not-self and selflessness on a variety of levels, from metachemical and chemical to physical and metaphysical. Only a relativistic self, which is called the ego, could co-exist, whether primarily or secondarily, with such a worldly mean.

3. But if the world is to be overcome, then the self will once again have to come back on the agenda, only on the most antithetically conceivable terms to how it began - namely on the omega-oriented and absolutist basis of the soul, which is the self conceived in relation to essence ... as that which remains when all else has passed away.

4. One might say that, in general terms, life devolves from the alpha ... of the id-self to the world ... of the not-self and selflessness in co-existence with the ego-self, and then evolves from the latter to the omega ... of the soul-self, which is as much beyond the world as the id-self was before or behind it.

5. At least that is how I would normally have thought of the overall picture; although I can see no reason why it shouldn't be possible to reverse the above and speak of life evolving from the alpha ... of the id-self to the world ... of the not-self and selflessness in co-existence with the ego-self, and then devolving from the latter to the omega ... of the soul-self, so that the return to self is conceived in terms of devolution from the world rather than of evolution beyond it.

6. Thus an evolutionary divergence from id-self to not-self and selflessness, and a devolutionary convergence from not-self and selflessness to soul-self via ego-self. To evolve away from the self and to devolve back to it again, albeit on the most antithetical terms conceivable.

7. For evolution surely presupposes the evolving of not-self and selflessness at the expense of the self, which is the world replacing the alpha paradise, call it 'Garden of Eden' or whatever, while devolution surely presupposes the devolving from the not-self and selflessness to the self, which is the omega paradise, call it post-Human Millennium or whatever, replacing the world, with its egocentric relativity.

8. Hence evolution from the id-based alpha paradise to the world, and devolution from the egocentric world, with its various orders of will and spirit, to the soul-centred omega paradise - self in the Beginning and in the End, albeit on the most antithetical conceivable terms.

9. Such is how I now view the overall picture of life, especially human life, on this planet, and it is one which suggests that worldly life is but a passing parade that must one day give way to the otherworldly life which puts the focus back on the self at the expense of all that, in contemporary life, alienates one from selfhood, especially the inner-most selfhood which is commensurate with the soul.