# Soul-Body Dichotomy (Exemplified in Beethoven)



## Forss (May 12, 2017)

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/a-meeting-of-genius-beethoven-and-goethe-july-1812

Alas, how one would've loved to witness this profound meeting in person! (Barely entertaining the thought is enough for me!) Isn't it rather peculiar that Beethoven, to Goethe's mind, had an "utterly untamed personality", while Goethe, in Beethoven's eyes, "delighted in the court atmosphere far more than is becoming to a poet"? I understand both of them, but tend to sympathize with Beethoven's subversiveness. It is _very_ comforting, I think, to consider Beethoven's often unkempt outward appearance in connexion with his _wholly_ spiritual being (which is, of course, manifested in his musical output). I, too, find this whole soul-body dichotomy which is human existence to be _quite_ hard, and often, while drenched in worldly affairs, I wonder if I'll ever meet my poor soul again! How do you deal with this _fundamental problem of everyday life_? (To transcend one's particular predicament, as it were.)


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

You pose a question that I think human beings have struggled with over thousands of years. As in, what shall it profit a [man] if he gains the whole world but loses [his] soul.

I have no answer to your question, Forss, except to quote Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any [man.]"

We know that our bodies are mortal. While the debate rages over whether our souls are also mortal, at some point many of us wonder about it. Perhaps this existence of ours is a schoolhouse, and the lesson we are to learn is precisely "I wonder if I'll ever meet my poor soul again!" So I think you're on the right track.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Forss said:


> Often, while drenched in worldly affairs, I wonder if I'll ever meet my poor soul again! How do you deal with this _fundamental problem of everyday life_? (To transcend one's particular predicament, as it were.)


As T.S. Eliot wrote:
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea
- _Dylan Thomas_

Haven't located my soul yet. Suspecting it is fictional.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

I find it very appropriate that this fundamental question, in its significant and _severe_ depth, only can be answered by means of poetry (or music, naturally). This, I gather, must surely be the solution of the problem of life!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Haven't located my soul yet. Suspecting it is fictional.


It's not fictional... it's just a name given to part of the output of that strange "black box" that is the human brain.

I'm not quite sure what this thread is about. Is it personal hygiene?


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Nereffid said:


> I'm not quite sure what this thread is about. Is it personal hygiene?


Are you saying that Beethoven had dirty soles? Well, he probably did. The good news is that his rancid B.O. more than covered up his rancid foot odor (which I imagine he had, I cannot confirm). The question is if Beethoven had toe nails so long that they looked like Fritos.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

I've known people who are dealing with the question in ways other than music or poetry. The beauty of a rose, or of a sunset. The look of love and trust in a child's eyes. Late at night, pondering the stars from out on the ocean. Growing food for hungry people. Rescuing an animal from a bad situation. Donating time, energy, money for the betterment of the world. 

As many ways to ponder the ineffable as there are people. So the question for me is not HOW one does it, but DOES one do it? Because the opposite is so horrifying: the bumper sticker 'He who dies with the most toys wins.' The accumulation of wealth as a mindless, never-ending ravening. The wielding of power for the sake of self-aggrandizement. 

I think it was M. Scott Peck who wrote that this earth is a "vale of soul-making." Our own, and the nurturing of others'.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

Nereffid said:


> It's not fictional... it's just a name given to part of the output of that strange "black box" that is the human brain.
> 
> I'm not quite sure what this thread is about. Is it personal hygiene?


What could this _possibly_ mean? Please be respectful of other members sincerity.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Forss said:


> https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/a-meeting-of-genius-beethoven-and-goethe-july-1812
> 
> Alas, how one would've loved to witness this profound meeting in person! (Barely entertaining the thought is enough for me!) Isn't it rather peculiar that Beethoven, to Goethe's mind, had an "utterly untamed personality", while Goethe, in Beethoven's eyes, "delighted in the court atmosphere far more than is becoming to a poet"? I understand both of them, but tend to sympathize with Beethoven's subversiveness. It is _very_ comforting, I think, to consider Beethoven's often unkempt outward appearance in connexion with his _wholly_ spiritual being (which is, of course, manifested in his musical output). I, too, find this whole soul-body dichotomy which is human existence to be _quite_ hard, and often, while drenched in worldly affairs, I wonder if I'll ever meet my poor soul again! *How do you deal with this fundamental problem of everyday life?* (To transcend one's particular predicament, as it were.)


How do I deal with it? As little as is necessary to be fed, clothed, housed, and undisturbed.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
> Time held me green and dying
> Though I sang in my chains like the sea
> - _Dylan Thomas_
> ...


You may change your tune on your deathbed. My father was a devout atheist and as he lay dying, he became more religious than the Pope.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Forss said:


> What could this _possibly_ mean? Please be respectful of other members sincerity.


Well, you mentioned Beethoven's unkempt appearance, and I thought, you know, _mens sana in corpore sano_...


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

CypressWillow said:


> I've known people who are dealing with the question in ways other than music or poetry. The beauty of a rose, or of a sunset. The look of love and trust in a child's eyes. Late at night, pondering the stars from out on the ocean. Growing food for hungry people. Rescuing an animal from a bad situation. Donating time, energy, money for the betterment of the world.
> 
> As many ways to ponder the ineffable as there are people. So the question for me is not HOW one does it, but DOES one do it? Because the opposite is so horrifying: the bumper sticker 'He who dies with the most toys wins.' The accumulation of wealth as a mindless, never-ending ravening. The wielding of power for the sake of self-aggrandizement.
> 
> I think it was M. Scott Peck who wrote that this earth is a "vale of soul-making." Our own, and the nurturing of others'.


If so, M. Scott Peck lifted it from a letter that John Keats wrote to his brother and sister.

However, you're onto something in your post in general. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his investigations into Eastern spirituality, found the concept of "brahman" in Hinduism, and famously translated that idea to his American readers and lecture-attenders as the "Oversoul;" i.e., there's really only One of Us, so We had better take care of Ourself, and try to love and understand and forgive Ourself, rather than ravaging, killing, destroying, and exploiting Ourself. Quite rational, really.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

CypressWillow said:


> You pose a question that I think human beings have struggled with over thousands of years. As in, what shall it profit a [man] if he gains the whole world but loses [his] soul.
> 
> I have no answer to your question, Forss, except to quote Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any [man.]"
> 
> We know that our bodies are mortal. *While the debate rages over whether our souls are also mortal*, at some point many of us wonder about it. Perhaps this existence of ours is a schoolhouse, and the lesson we are to learn is precisely "I wonder if I'll ever meet my poor soul again!" So I think you're on the right track.


We are getting into metaphysics. Even if our thoughts and feelings are chemical reactions or electrical impulses, it tells nothing of their source, but more of their physical means. Hawking illustrated it as us being the means through which the cosmos looks at itself.

We can think in abstract terms, enabling us to harness electricity, etc. We can also think beyond ourselves, and do what we believe is for the greater good of humankind, and contemplate the meaning of Life. Our ideas, experiences and thoughts can be seen as real, while our bodies are not (!), in that time will erase in the end any hint of its progress in growing, eating, sleeping, etc., while our lives/souls/experiences exist beyond time and space through memory, either by ourselves or others.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> We are getting into metaphysics. Even if our thoughts and feelings are chemical reactions or electrical impulses, it tells nothing of their source, but more of their physical means. Hawking illustrated it as us being the means through which the cosmos looks at itself.
> 
> We can think in abstract terms, enabling us to harness electricity, etc. We can also think beyond ourselves, and do what we believe is for the greater good of humankind, and contemplate the meaning of Life. Our ideas, experiences and thoughts can be seen as real, while our bodies are not (!), in that time will erase in the end any hint of its progress in growing, eating, sleeping, etc., while our lives/souls/experiences exist beyond time and space through memory, either by ourselves or others.


Some Gnostics believed that we are both a consciousness in which the vast universe is contained and also a thing contained within an imaginably vast universe. Neither of these views is wrong and neither is primal in relation to the other.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

Totenfeier said:


> *If so, M. Scott Peck lifted it from a letter that John Keats wrote to his brother and sister.*
> 
> However, you're onto something in your post in general. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his investigations into Eastern spirituality, found the concept of "brahman" in Hinduism, and famously translated that idea to his American readers and lecture-attenders as the "Oversoul;" i.e., there's really only One of Us, so We had better take care of Ourself, and try to love and understand and forgive Ourself, rather than ravaging, killing, destroying, and exploiting Ourself. Quite rational, really.


Oh, you're right, Totenfeier, thanks for the correction. I think I heard Peck refer to it at a lecture.

I was told by a young Buddhist monk that "No one has ever escaped [their] karma," and, whether karma is the carrot or the stick, I believe it's worth remembering.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

hpowders said:


> You may change your tune on your deathbed. My father was a devout atheist and as he lay dying, he became more religious than the Pope.


Perhaps if I go senile! In any case, members of our clan tend to die on their feet, not in bed. I hope to continue that fine tradition.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

It is difficult but you must fare forward, voyager!


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