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Originally Posted by HerenIstarion
PS I imagine, if you set out to deliberately find Buddhism in there, you may give me loud yes to all my questions (such as me and my food being the same), but there is such a thing as Occam’s Razor to shave reasoning with in this case here – with more plausibility and less strain Christian philosophy may be used to explain this, so why seek beyond and try to fit round screws into square holes?  ) |
Yes, but we have to talk about which Christian philosophy - there are many.
The Eru-Arda cosmology, I propose,
is Tolkien's inner Ekklesia - outward-ecclesiastical Catholicism was not the outward manifestation of this self-Gnosis: it was his Prison, his banishment from Eden. He saw the destruction of the natural world in temporal-spatial reality and understood it transcendentally: his writing, like all writing, was a reflection of his knowledge of the dialectic movement in our world toward God-Goddess Unity. What he was unable to do was accept the fact that he suffered because he was attached to the outcomes of events in his life like the deaths of his parents, the Great Wars, etc. (All presumptuous, I still readily admit - I do not Know J.R.R. Tolkien.)
In my opinion, Occam's Razor is a blade that was dulled before it was forged, some 2,500 years ago; the interplay of the three Illusion-forming
gunas in the Mahabharata, when compared with the relationship of the Three Elven Rings to the One Ring of Power, is a decent metaphor for my purposes:
Narya, the kindler of passion --
Rajas, activity; the myth that something is happening -- is sacrificed by Gandalf to rid Ea of the One Ring, the Burden. Through this act Gandalf becomes Formless again.
Nenya, the earth-preserver --
Sattva, kindness -- is sacrificed by Galadriel in order to rid Ea of the One Ring. Through this act Galadriel is allowed to return to the West from her exile, though the earth with which she has associated her existence ceases to be beautiful.
Vilya --
Tamas, ancestor-worship -- is not Elrond's real sacrifice. The real sacrifice he makes is not to Ea, but to his own desires: Vilya means nothing to him, Arwen everything. He sacrifices her to mortality, and in doing so passes into the West -- alive but not really whole.
Through these three forces the power of the Ring is undone.