Santayana's Spirituality: Consciousness Pure & Free

I have been reading some of George Santayana’s philosophical thoughts. I find his view of spirituality of particular interest. Without going into much detail here, I will briefly lay the framework of Santayana’s thought so as to provide context.

Santayana defines four realms; the Realms of: Essence, Matter, Truth, & Spirit. Essence is the totality of all (infinite) forms each of which is perfectly self-identical and eternal. Essences are not physical (although physicality is an essence) and are independent of time and space.

Occasionally an essence is wrenched into momentary existence out of the vague infinity. Traditionally this force is called the creative power of “God,” but Santayana argues otherwise. Instead he calls this the unintelligible force of Matter which has no ultimate reason. Existence is “an insane emphasis” and the patterns and habits of existence do not remove its arbitrariness.

The realm of Truth contains all objective facts. Anything that ever had/has/will have Essence and Matter – the fact that an essence did, does, will exist in the physical world – is Truth. Such objective truths are merely humble facts and serve only as an ideal for which we may aim.

To understand the realm of spirituality we must first understand consciousness - which is a collection of units of momentary cognitive awareness (intuition) directed at an object. This object is an essence. Because of our psyches (the human organism behind the consciousness) we cannot enjoy these aesthetic essences at face value. To truly enjoy the objects of our consciousness we must be free of convictions and belief, thus having pure intuition. In this way the spiritual life frees us from the world of organically based values.

The spirit is a novel form of being that emerges from the cognitive awareness of consciousness. The perfection of this consciousness “is to be the unattached spectator of all time and existence and the contemplator of every possibility. Such transcendence in thought of the physical is what we normally mean by spirituality... Absorption in pure intuition, even if temporary, constitutes the spiritual life. This spiritual life is thus free of values and empty of striving.”

This idea seems to me to be reminiscent of the Hindi concept of Nirvana as well as the aim of practicing Zen Buddhism.

Santayana leaves room for meaning in life, but only that meaning which we find while we are living it. “Our momentary flowering is followed by inevitable fall.”

Stuhr, John J. (Ed.). (2000). Pragmatism and Classical American Philosophy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.