THE UNITY OF MYSTICISM AND METAPHYSICS IN THE DEPTH OF “AIMO”

Woo-Won CHOI

ABSTRACT

“Return to the original inspiration and spirit.” Why is this motto felt more significant today, especially to the philosophers, scientists, artists, and religious men of high intelligence? What essentials ever have we lost or forgotten in spite of the enormous effort of theoretical rigor or minute sensuousness? Why do sciences fall into a trap of inversion and inhumanity, why do arts grow away from the verity of the soul, why do religions rest in the state of mutual hostility, and finally why do our philosophies turn in the circle of nonsense and inability instead of giving solutions to these problems? This paper tries to recover the essential integration forgotten by immature reason. Today’s World Community is searching for the spirit of this integration in a new dimension of the Being. Between different civilizations, between different religions, between science and religion, between art and religion, between man and nature, between technique and humanity, etc., our age calls for a true philosophy of the Being capable of leading them into an essential integration, ceasing the mutual isolation and conflict. That is why we focus our attention to the mysticism and, at the same time, to the fundamental transformation of contemporary metaphysics. In the history of Western philosophy, the mysticism has been expelled from the land of reason except for a very few philosophers. The ordinary dichotomy of modern reason between subject and object, emotion and reason, intuition and concept, religion and science, etc, has fortified this trend. It is with the fundamental transformation of contemporary metaphysics that the reason began to decipher the empirical verity of the mysticism. Surpassing the depth of Cartesian cogito ergo sum, the metaphysics attained, in the root of the Being, the ultimate dimension of the unity of verity, beauty, and divinity. The message of divine love emanating naturally from this ultimate Awakening will be the philosophical basis of the World Community. Reflecting the fact that the fundamental transformation of contemporary metaphysics was possible by the influence of Buddhism, our philosophy has already told about the alliance of civilizations and World Community.