The Three Pillars

There are three pillars that hold up our world, and a pillar of course, unites the lower part of a building to it's roof. A pillar is a symbol for the concept of relationship; and relationship - whether you like it or not - is a basic staple of human existence.

The first pillar is the pillar of charity
The second pillar is the pillar of prayer
and the third pillar can be called the pillar of Torah

This is not a religious thread, but an existentialist philosophical thread.

The first pillar deals with mans relationship to other people. All people yearn for peace and freedom, no? The chord which unites them is the pillar of charity. When you show patience with someone, you are being charitable with them. When you endure insults, or avoid conflict, you are showing charity - to yourself, and to others. The most relevant idea associated with charity is the actual giving of money, or basic amenities, to people in physical need. This is a pillar that unites people. It's a pillar that literally "holds up the world". Or, makes the world into a place approximating a true Garden of Eden.

The second pillar deals with mans relationship with God, or the supreme mystery of life. Prayer is an almost involuntary reflect of the self in it's moment of need. Even if it isn't uttered towards a particular other, prayer is still uttered, to the self, to whatever could be listening. It may seem irrational, but it is a natural reflex of man. This pillar, when it's a true and sincere expression of self to God, sustains mans awareness of universal ends.

The third pillar, the one I'm sure must have irritated some users, I call the pillar of Torah. What's meant by "Torah" is not the Hebrew 5 books of Moses, although that could be considered a condensation of that idea. Rather, Torah in it's etymological sense means "instruction", or "appearance". Torah, in short, deals with mans relationship with the physical world about him. One pillars deal with mans relationship to other men; another with mans relationship to God.. But what about the physical world? The external, world which provides us details for what Gods great plan might be? It is this pillar, I believe, that is being mostly railed against and despised in this modern era of ours. Despite our inquiries into nature - it has remained an almost 'rationalistic' inquiry without concern for any moral lesson the world might convey to man.

I think a healthy and happy life should have these three pillars strongly erected in consciousness; the person should respond to the reality of the other person, the reality of the eternal mystery of human existence, and the reality of the physical world around us. Each zone of awareness presents to us the challenge of erecting this pillar. We cannot be charitable, and so, destroy the pillar connecting us to other people. We can not care about the question of existence, and so God, and so not bother with prayer or communication between the self and the eternal other, smashing to pieces the second pillar. Or, we can ignore the moral admonitions of the patterns imbedded within objective physical existence, distancing ourselves from the established way of things, decimating the pillar of Torah.

I get it.

A lot of charity has disappeared recently, so this pillar is getting a bashing.
The second pillar is getting a pounding too by a concerted effort to attack the rainbow protection around our world.
The third pillar is also being beaten up with all the 'man-made' natural disasters and the wildlife being killed and Louisana sinkhole nearly being ignited by a man-made UFO.

So do you know what happens if these pillars are broken? Do we have a disaster that rips open the Earth? Or do we go home? End of play?


Interesting thread.

reply to post by dontreally


kinda like this?

reply to post by dontreally


I have been reflecting recently on the story of Samson. How he was a complete failure in his life but through his surrender to God he was liberated. He was chained to two pillars that held up the temple of Dagon.

Your post made me.think of something. Samson's sin like that of the other judges of the day was their want of being worldly and having the vanity of men and their pleasures. Samson ignored his duty to God and his people. It could be said he was chained to the pilars of their world. In my interpretation pride and disloyalty to his God.

His blindness was a spiritual blindness and the child that helped him find the pillars in one version was the innocence he lacked in his spiritual blindness. His enemies plucked out his eyes and made him blind like the modern word makes us blind to our spirituality. When he finally realizes his sin he prays and kneels before God. He surrenders and being chained to the pillars of his sinful nature, brings the whole temple crashing down onthem.

He asks to die with his enemies. His death is a spiritual death that by its repentance and surrender unto God ends his humiliation and imprisonment, his prison of blindness and suffering.

Though Samson dies, he is also liberated by gods strength and fulfills his purpose. His life was a disappointment to God and his people. He wasted his great gift in pride and sin and was chained to them.

His sacrifice and surrender destroyed his real enemies by his kneeling unto God, his enemy of being worldy instead of true.

Just a thought.

reply to post by AriesJedi


I include animals under the pillar of physical reality.

How many people observe dogs at play and derive some philosophical lesson from it?? And yet so much can be discovered! I think our language - English - deliberately contains philosophical intimations of the meaning of a dog.

A dog is as ignorant of our understanding of him as we would be of Gods awareness of us. But the dog is loyal. Why? Why of all creatures does this creature cling to us with such faithfulness?? Is that an insinuation of our own spiritual need to 'cling' to God, in the same spirit of ignorance, not knowing, or understanding, but still feeling that this God is good to us and loves us, in the same manner that a dog trusts the guidance of it's human friend?

Every time I have to administer medicine to my dog Maggy, I see that she's agitated and fearful that I might be hurting her. But she stays still, and she almost stares into my eyes, as I do what I need to do. She trusts me. It's an unbelievable testament in my mind of the particular relationship that exists between the mind of man and the thoughts of God.

reply to post by manykapao

Your post made me.think of something. Samson's sin like that of the other judges of the day was their want of being worldly and having the vanity of men and their pleasures. Samson ignored his duty to God and his people. It could be said he was chained to the pilars of their world. In my interpretation pride and disloyalty to his God.

That's actually a very interesting insight!

It's not often that I come by people here who have correct intuitions of what the Biblical books might be talking about.

That's actually exactly what I have thought as well. The Bible uses typology, and metaphor to convey it's ideas. The idea of a 'pillar' is relationship. So, Samson's striving for Philistine women and Philistine culture, and rejecting his role and obligation to his people, refers to the 'spirit of the age' of that time in Biblical history. Their striving, and eventually, succumbing to the allures of philistine culture, and eventually becoming 'chained' to the temple of dagan - to the ways of the pagan peoples of Gaza, eventually consumed the people; the pillars which held up the temple (their paganized conception of the world) fell upon them. Destroying them, and the people.

His blindness was a spiritual blindness

Indeed. And his 'weakness' which Delilah (Hebrew for 'darkness') sought to discover was his 'hair'. Hair symbolizes the 'outgrowth' of wisdom. It is a symbol for understanding. The seductress of Philistine culture contaminated, or 'cut' the hair, or understanding, of Samson. Leading to his enslavement to Philistine ways of thinking.

It's a profoundly interesting book which has been poorly understood by people. It's an allegory.

No, there are 7 pillars.........sorry to disagree with you!

en.wikipedia.org...

The title comes from the Book of Proverbs, 9:1: "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars" (KJV). Prior to the First World War, Lawrence had begun work on a scholarly book about seven great cities of the Middle East,[2] to be titled Seven Pillars of Wisdom. When war broke out, it was still incomplete and Lawrence stated that he ultimately destroyed the manuscript.

Pillars can be used in many ways. I was a victim of domestic violence, and we used 7 pillars for out self discovery.

reply to post by Sissel


To continue with what I was going with, it is interesting to note that Delilah cuts seven locks of Samson's hair while he slept. As dontreally said, her name, darkness cuts his strength, his name meaning sunlight, or for all intent and purpose his light was weakened by his passions darkness. He was weakened enough to be captured and all of his wisdom stripped of him. After he was captured he was shaved, but the temptress started the weakening by cutting seven locks of hair, seven spiritual outgrowths of his wisdom and strength of God.

It is possible to say that his natural state with God, his purity was his strength since his being dedicated to God since before his birth is no different than all of mans purpose in being created to serve God. When we stray from our purity we lose our strength in God and so our purpose.

Samson is.interesting to me as well because he is like an antihero. An anti Gilgamesh who defeats the savage pure form of himself (enkido). In Gilgamesh it is when Enkido is tamed by a woman that he is weakened enough to be defeated by Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh later having to surrender to his mortality and kill his ego after a long process of deterioration through his quest.

Like Samson, Gilgamesh had to surrender to his true nature and accept his death in order to be restored.

The seven pillars of self wisdom or self discovery are like the different stages of Gilgamesh's journey, like the hardships Samson had to endure in his error of choosing an incorrect path. The last two being part of his mortality, the ego and the blindness of the observer, destroying the false identity, and rebirth after through a spiritual death.

reply to post by Sissel

Pillars can be used in many ways.

Thanks. Yes, I am aware of my arbitrary use of the idea of pillar.

What I more so tried to convey is the 3 fundamental types of relations human beings deal with: relation with other people, relation with the spiritual, and relation with nature.

Each relation challenges man to come into unity, or consonance with it. Charity bridges the gap between people; prayer bridges the gap between man and God; and contemplation of natures dynamics bridges the gap between man and nature.

So, it's apt that the metaphor of 'pillars' is used to convey the importance of these three ideas.

reply to post by manykapao

To continue with what I was going with, it is interesting to note that Delilah cuts seven locks of Samson's hair while he slept. As dontreally said, her name, darkness cuts his strength, his name meaning sunlight, or for all intent and purpose his light was weakened by his passions darkness. He was weakened enough to be captured and all of his wisdom stripped of him. After he was captured he was shaved, but the temptress started the weakening by cutting seven locks of hair, seven spiritual outgrowths of his wisdom and strength of God.

Yes, Shimshon, from the Hebrew Shemesh 'sun'.

I think it's important not to forget the anthropological setting of this interesting biblical narrative. The Book of Judges, when analyzed from beginning to end, not only outlines cases of an important spiritual psychology, but more generally, when the book is taken as a whole, it makes some pertinent political judgements, since the whole idea of the book is contained in the books name - shoftim (judges) - which is necessarily political.

The book begins with 'everyone doing what was good in their eyes', which, as many have noted, is a statement of anarchism. But by the time we reach the period of Samson, the society seems to be in moral disarray. The book seems to be saying that without formal laws, i.e. in the form of the Torah of Israel (particularly it's 10 commandments, which in my opinion, are an extremely healthy prescription for spiritual awareness), what begins as well intentioned, eventually becomes degraded. The natural trajectory of nature is towards entropy, and only laws, or regularity, or constant reminders in the form of 'laws', keep the people on the spiritual ball.

By the end of the book, the people come to Samuel and demand a monarchy. Ironically, Samuel, whose sons were known for their corruption, still felt anarchy would be preferable - despite the corruption of his progeny. Samuel, perhaps typifying the mentality of those spiritual 'elect', doesn't seem to care too much, reminding one of the laxity of the high priest Eli whose own indolence towards the spiritual well being of others led to the 'capture' of the ark of the covenant by the philistines.

When Samuel inquires of what God thinks of the peoples demands, God tells him to assent to the peoples wishes - which seems to be a sanction of democracy.

And of course, the Bible shows not compunction about showing all the dark sides of human nature. David was a great king, but Solomon took it too far; his corruption led to the corruption of rehovoam which led to the split in the kingdom of Israel.

It is possible to say that his natural state with God, his purity was his strength since his being dedicated to God since before his birth is no different than all of mans purpose in being created to serve God. When we stray from our purity we lose our strength in God and so our purpose.

Exactly. That is exactly the theological idea running beneath the narrative. And that's precisely why the Philistines are taken as an archetype of the opposite approach. They become the archetype of spiritual corruption.

One day I'm gonna write up a commentary on the book, and perhaps the book of Judges as a whole.

Like Samson, Gilgamesh had to surrender to his true nature and accept his death in order to be restored.

That might be the significance of his death under the walls of the temple.. I don't know. I haven't read the book in over a year, so I'm a little hazy about the details.

reply to post by dontreally


Great thoughts. Excellent use of the Torah as a metaphor for the appearance of nature. I was unaware of the etymology of the word.

Of course without these appearances, there wouldn't be much left of our idealistic world as well—one I agree we are unnecessarily gravitating towards at the expense of the physical (what's apparent).

Should we also mention the other pillars—that of self-preservation, instinct and nature herself? It seems without these too the top would collapse. I feel these drives would be on the flip-side of your coin, but nonetheless still a part of it, unless they already fall under piller three.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

self-preservation, instinct and nature herself?

They would be the flip side; they would also undo the unifying function of the 3 pillars.

A pillar is 'erected'. It's not there on its own, but rather, has to be set up by a conscious mind.

Self preservation, instinct, and nature, all function independently of mans volition. If we do nothing, if no 'pillar' is erected, self preservation, which is first nature, dictates our behavior.

Excellent use of the Torah as a metaphor for the appearance of nature

This is the basic idea of the Hebrew Bible. Much ado has been made about 'revelation' (a dichotomy created by tertullian), so much so that the meaning behind the allegory has been almost totally lost, thanks to Greek, Roman and Christian persecution over the ages. Thankfully, tremendous research is being made into the philosophical ideas behind the Hebrew Bible, whether metaphysical, theological, moral, political, epistemological etc. The Hebrews, which helps explain the intellectual prowess of Jews - fostered an extremely intellectual approach to the world; of course, no where near as cold or impersonal as the Greeks/Romans, they definitely recognized the twofold nature of things, between the I/Thou dialectic, and the I-It, dialect (to borrow the conceptual framework of Martin Buber). The I-Thou relationship is preserved in it's moral and spiritual dimension, which stresses the reality of the 'thou', the person, which is not a thing that can be played with (as the pagan empires, Egypt/Babylon/Persia/Greeks/Romans were wont to do); at the same time, they made profound distinctions in the objective world, between 'pure' and 'impure', ascribing a distinct quality to every thing.

This is the tradition the Talmud continues in it's Aggadic and Halachic aspects. The former contains the 'spirituality' of the Jews, the latter, the rigorously abstruse logic, and legalism.

reply to post by dontreally

The first pillar is the pillar of charity
The second pillar is the pillar of prayer
and the third pillar can be called the pillar of Torah

1. relation with other people, 2. relation with the spiritual, and 3. relation with nature.

Just want to thank you for this information. I've learned a lot through this discussion.
This morning I found myself putting the "Torah" into context and getting a sense of creating a solid foundation.

Originally posted by AriesJedi
I get it.

A lot of charity has disappeared recently, so this pillar is getting a bashing.
The second pillar is getting a pounding too by a concerted effort to attack the rainbow protection around our world.
The third pillar is also being beaten up with all the 'man-made' natural disasters and the wildlife being killed and Louisana sinkhole nearly being ignited by a man-made UFO.

So do you know what happens if these pillars are broken? Do we have a disaster that rips open the Earth? Or do we go home? End of play?


Interesting thread.

Hmmm.....Maybe you need to go out and have a beer. You sound kind of depressing. Will you quit being so blunt