2. The Antichrist: The Four Great Errors

My old teacher expresses displeasure at the fact "The most general formula at the basis of every religion and morality is: "Do this and this, refrain from this and this- and you will be happy! Otherwise..." Every morality, every religion is this imperative- I call it the great original sin of reason, immortal unreason."

This I have to agree with based on my understandings, that true action must originate from within man and from his active will and not from what he calls "Immortal Unreason."

My old teacher then goes on to discuss about our "inner facts". The will, the consciousness and the ego (the "subject') are in fact non-existent. Something which we "latch onto" in pursuit of our excited cause-creating drive because we want to have a reason for feeling as we do. He states something quite interesting and which I feel inclined to agree with (at a certain level)- the fact that we only possess 'General Feelings' and are consistently and continuously engaged and involved in the "play and counter-play of our organs". To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing and gives moreover a feeling of power.

Even while I sit here typing, focusing on the task at hand, my stomach is warm, I feel comfortable, my legs are tingling due to a lack of blood. This whole jibble-jabble of multiple feelings and sensations constitute our 'general feelings' which in our minds are felt first before termed and hence given meaning.

I realize that they are registered as generally positive or non-positive before my mind analyzes it and gives it reason. For example, true, I am hungry and this is negative but I am doing something of a higher calling (applying myself mentally in place of fulfilling my hunger). So then my hunger becomes more positive than negative.

But my old teacher goes on to posit that the will is but a convenient invention. Men were thought of as "free" so that they could become guilty; consequently, every action had to be thought of as willed, the origin of every action as lying in the consciousness.

This point leaves me a little upset and perplexed and I will be back to write more about this in a bit, I hope.