Editor’s Notes:
This lecture by Professor Jiang marks the beginning of a transformative course that explores the true essence of “great books” and their power to reveal the secrets of the universe and human consciousness. Challenging the materialistic view often taught in schools, the lecture introduces the concept of humans as beings with both a material body and a divine soul, connected through love and imagination. Using metaphors like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, it examines the struggle between mental enslavement by modern systems and the path toward spiritual freedom and enlightenment. Ultimately, this presentation sets the stage for a lifelong journey through classic literature, offering a framework to achieve immortality and a deeper connection with the divine. (Jan 7, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
What Is a Great Book?
PROFESSOR JIANG: What is a great book? What I want to show you in this class is that a great book is something that makes you fully human by revealing to you the secrets of the universe and the secrets of what it means to be human.
Now in school you’ve been taught that a person comes from evolution, right? We evolved from monkeys. 99% of our DNA is that of a chimpanzee and you’re taught that the world is primarily materialistic. The world is what you can see, what you can observe, what you can measure, and that’s it.
And this is a great lie, the great deception that we teach you in school. And we know it’s a lie, it’s a deception, because everything that you’ve been taught in school, everything that you’ve learned here, that you will learn in university, in graduate school, in science, in life, does not answer a fundamental question. What is consciousness? Why do we see the world the way it is? How do we think? How do we have ideas? How do we communicate? You’re not allowed to ask this question. And therefore, you’re not allowed to ask the question, what does it mean to be human? What is human?
Two Aspects of Being Human
And I will show you in this class that there are two aspects of being human. There is, of course, the material aspect. You have a body, but you also have a soul. You also have a soul that connects you to the spiritual, or to the divine. And that’s who you are. And the spiritual and the divine, there’s a spark inside of you that comes from God. And this spark is what allows you to love and to imagine.
So, being human means to engage in two fundamental acts. The act of love, of loving someone, which allows you to unify with God. And the act of imagination, to expand your consciousness, which allows you to be God itself.
Love is the unifying force of the universe, the God force. The imagination is the animating force of the universe. And this is a great secret of the universe. The universe is not material, it is conscious. It is conscious itself.
Immanuel Kant: Reality, Noumena, and Phenomena
So, this is a really hard concept to understand. So, let’s work through it slowly.
We have Immanuel Kant. And we’ll read Immanuel Kant later on. And he’s trying to figure out what reality is. How do we perceive reality? And his solution is this. He believes that the world is divided into reality itself, called the noumena. Noumena just means the things in themselves, the objective reality. And then there is the phenomena. And what we do, basically, is that we perceive, or we engage with the noumena, and we translate it into the phenomena. The things in themselves become the things to us, the things that appear to us. And we do this by filtering the noumena through time and space.
So, our brains are constructed in a way that allows us to perceive the spiritual and turn it into material.
Julian Jaynes: The Brain’s Two Hemispheres
So, another man named Julian Jaynes, he is the American psychologist. And he takes this idea and he gives it a physical basis. Basically, what he says is that our brains have both a right hemisphere and a left hemisphere. So, what the right hemisphere does is it connects to the noumena, the things in themselves, that we can never know. And then the left translates it into the phenomena.
So, this is a mechanism in the brain that does this. The right hemisphere gets all this information from the noumena, the spiritual. And then the left brain, for our eyes, for our senses, translates it into the phenomena.
What Is the Noumena?
So, another question then is, what is the noumena? And this is a question that mystics, monks have been struggling with for all human history. And so, we can never describe the noumena because it is beyond space and time. It is beyond our capacity to describe it. So, I can only explain to you metaphorically.
Consciousness, Vibrations, and the Structure of the Universe
What the noumena really is, is consciousness. Consciousness comes from energy, vibrations. So all the entire universe, it’s vibrations. Vibrations carry information. Information becomes consciousness.
So, let’s metaphorically, what we say is, there’s a source called a monad. The one. The center of the universe. God. And how the monad works is through breathing, emanation. And this creates vibrations throughout the universe. So, the monad breathes in and breathes out. And this is the basis of the universe. These vibrational fields.
But, through this process, this also creates other energies as well. And we call these the dyads. And so, these are all the basic structure of the universe. And then, the dyads create other forces as well. And as the universe keeps on vibrating, the vibrations, the frequencies become slower. You go from high to low. Ohm. And because it’s going slow now, physicality, materialism develops. And this creates the material universe.
But the thing to understand is that material is always connected to the spiritual.
This entire force, the entire universe, it’s all interconnected together. It’s both everything and nothing at the same time.
The Divine Origin of Consciousness
The problem, though, is that eventually, our world is created. And then what happens is, our world is materialistic, and we have bodies. So, our bodies are part of this material world, but our consciousness comes from the divine. Does that make sense? So, our bodies are created through evolution, but our consciousness is created through the vibrations of the universe. Our consciousness is connected with the universe itself.
So, another way we can understand this concept is, imagine these people together. You have all these people together. So, how consciousness works is, it’s an infinite dimensional consciousness. So, this is what happens. Your consciousness is expanding infinitely into the universe. As you can see, at one level, you are by yourself. Your consciousness is unique to you. But at another level, a higher level, is that you’re connected with someone else. And then, you’re connected to another person. And you go on and on until you connect with everything. So, when your consciousness is the capacity to connect with the entire universe, but it’s really far, far away.
So, this is complicated. And so, different philosophers throughout history have tried to figure out how to best articulate this truth, this great secret to humanity.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
The next metaphor that we have is something called Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Cave. And this helps us understand who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. So this is a metaphor, an allegory, that helps us understand what it means to be human and the human condition.
So what Plato says is this. Imagine you have these prisoners. And they’re all tied down. They’re chained to the ground. Their necks are chained, their arms are chained, so you can’t move your head. You can’t get up. And what you’re doing is you’re watching a wall. This is a wall. And behind the wall, behind you, is this great fire. And from behind this fire are these people. We don’t know who they are, actually. But they are putting up these figures. And so they are projecting shadows onto a wall. And because we, the prisoners, cannot see the entirety of a reality, we believe that the wall itself is reality.
So an example of this, of course, is movies. We watch movies and we think this is a reality. So the question then is, why are these people making this effort to fool us into believing that this wall, these movies, are real? And the answer is because they’re trying to enslave us. Slavery.
Attention as Energy and True Wealth
But then you’re like, okay, but slavery means that I take a gun and I say, if you don’t do what I say, I’ll kill you. But that’s not what slavery is. If the universe is conscious, our energy comes from our attention. Attention is energy. So what they want is our energy. That’s true wealth.
If they’re able to focus our energy, capture our imagination, they can construct reality in the way that they want it. Okay? Because reality is what we imagine it to be. The imagination is the animating force of the universe. Right? So they can focus our attention. For us, they can create their own reality.
All right? Now we understand why we watch movies. Now we understand why we have the internet. Now we understand why the school wants you to love artificial intelligence. Because they still enslave you. All of human history is about enslavement. Okay? This is what progress is. You think that, oh my God, I can now watch movies. Oh my God, I have now social media. I can communicate with anyone. Oh my God, ChatGPT. And ChatGPT can tell me the truth about the world. No. All these things are created to enslave your mind. Because you have access to God. And so what they’re trying to do is trick you into believing that this reality is a true reality. Because once you believe that, this reality becomes the only reality.
Okay? Then the question is like, who are these people? Well, we don’t know. Okay? You can say they’re the elite. They’re the powers that be. You can also say they’re demons. We don’t know. Okay? But they’re interested in fooling us into believing that the movies that we see are real. The internet is real. Social media is real.
Okay? So then the question is, okay, if this is slavery, what is freedom? All right. What freedom is, is to escape this system. And to be able to think for yourself. To see for yourself. To be yourself.
So Plato goes on and says, okay, this one guy, for whatever reason, his chains break loose. And he stumbles out of the cave into the wilderness. Okay? The wilderness. And he sees the sun. And the sun, of course, is God. And at first, he’s blinded by the light. Yes, you have a question? Yeah, so let’s. Sorry. Yeah, can you speak into the microphone, please?
AUDIENCE: So I have a question before we talk about the freedom. Because like, I’ll.
PROFESSOR JIANG: Yeah, can I first explain what freedom is?
AUDIENCE: Okay, sure, thanks.
PROFESSOR JIANG: Thank you, all right. All right, it all makes sense, okay? All right.
Escaping the Cave: What Freedom Really Means
All right, so you go out into the world. And at first, you’re blinded by the light. Okay? And you hate it. But you struggle, and then you keep your eyes to see. And then you recognize that this world is beautiful. It is infinite. It’s diverse. It’s alive. This world that you thought was real is just a corpse. It’s a dead zombie world, okay? This is what life is.
Okay? And that’s what freedom is. Freedom means that you are now finally able to awake from this terrible nightmare, see everything that is around us, the movies, the AI, school as prison, as hell. And then you’re able to look inside yourself and then connect back to God, okay? The spiritual. To look beyond the phenomena and return to the noumena. To peer into the noumena, which is vibrations, energy.
All right, so that’s the first allegory of the cave. This makes sense, right?
How Do We Seek Freedom? The Role of Meditation
Now, this raises the question, which is, okay, that’s fine, but how do we escape, okay? How do we seek freedom? Okay? So, if you look at every single religious tradition, whether it’s Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity, Judaism, it doesn’t matter, okay? Every single religion proposes the same solution, which is meditation.
Okay, what’s meditation? Okay, all right, so let’s start. If the world is vibration, if it flows, there must be a logic to this flow. There must be a certain structure to this movement, okay? And the Egyptians proposed that what governs this flow is the idea of secret geometry. Okay, secret geometry, okay? This is what they did for a thousand years, figuring out that the vibrational energy flows in certain geometric patterns, okay? And these geometric patterns are the basis for the universe itself.
Harmonizing with the Universe
So now, if we understand this secret geometry, what we can do now is construct our conscious in a way that allows us to match the vibrational flow of the universe, to harmonize with the universe, right? And how do you do that? You do that through breathing, okay? Breath work. Because by breathing, you can construct your consciousness in a way that becomes part of the universe itself.
All right, and this will take decades, but you can do this. And then, when you’re able to harmonize with vibrational flow of the universe, then reality itself reveals itself to you, okay? You’re going to see this world as false. You’re able now to connect to the true spiritual universe. Okay? So this is true consciousness. And this is what all monks in the world are trying to do. Okay? You’re trying to leave your body and embrace the spiritual. Because when you do that, it allows you to connect with the divine and discover the secrets of the universe. You’re able to see both the phenomena as well as the noumena. And this is a great secret of all religions. This is what all religions practice.
Hacks to Connect with the Spiritual
At the same time, there are actually some hacks, okay? Hacks. So meditation is what you’re supposed to do, but a lot of people are like, you know what, this is a long time, decades and decades of isolation, of just meditation, of trying to figure out how to connect the universe, okay? That’s decades and decades, possibly 100 years. There must be an easier way, and there are, okay? They’re not great, but there are, and we figured it out, okay?
So the first hack that you can use is psychedelics. All right, so these drugs, and they could be magic mushrooms, they could be ayahuasca, peyote, whatever, okay? But they alter your consciousness in a way that disrupts your left hemisphere and allows you to focus on your right hemisphere, which allows you to see the nomana, okay? When you see the nomana, you’re like, oh my God, it’s just energy, okay? It’s just colors, colors, colors. So if you go online and you see artwork from people who’ve used psychedelics, you will see that it’s very colorful, okay? And it’s very strong, it’s all vibrational, okay? So that’s one hack.
Another hack that you can use is self denial. Okay, so it’s possible, you can starve yourself fasting, okay, it’s possible that you go out naked in the cold, okay, but when you collapse your body and you’re approaching death, your consciousness shifts into the spiritual, okay? So what’s important to understand is death is not the end, death is release, because this world that we live in, our bodies are the prison, okay? So don’t fear death, it’s just part of the natural cycle.
Okay, and the third is something called NDEs, near-death experiences. So these are people who don’t want to die, but they might be in a car accident or they could have drowned, okay? And they died for like five minutes. What happens, and they all come back and say the same thing, when they die, they escape into the spiritual realm and they meet God, okay? And these are people who don’t know each other, but they say the same thing about the near-death experience, which is the world that they go into, it is Plato’s world, it’s like escaping a cave and going to the world of the light. It is a world of compassion, of love, of forgiveness. It is as though you’re connected again with the divine, okay?
The Christ Consciousness
All right, and then, but there’s also another way, and this is what the Christians believe, okay? So let’s talk about Jesus. So Christians, mystics, believe that there’s a way for Jesus to connect fully with the divine, okay? And this is the idea of the Christ consciousness. Okay, so I’m going to explain slowly how this works, but it’s very complicated, okay? So interrupt me if this is confusing, all right?
So what’s important to understand is that we’re not just passive observers of reality, we’re active participants in reality. That’s why Kant teaches this, okay? So as we are receiving all these vibrations, we ourselves are vibrating, okay? Through our imagination, does that make sense?
So as we are receiving information which allows us to create memories, we then implant our memories into this consciousness, which changes the universe. So think of the internet, right? If you’re computing on a laptop, it works because it connects to the internet. It’s receiving information from the internet, but then it changes information, it goes back into the internet, okay? So through memories, through the creation of memories, you are participating in the universe, okay?
The Ocean Metaphor: Your Role in the Universe
All right, another metaphor that we can use is, think of an ocean, think of an ocean, right? And all these pebbles are dropping in the ocean which creates vibrations. You are that pebble, okay? And your role in the world is to create as much of a splash as possible, okay, to vibrate. The Greeks have a term for this called eudaimonia, which is the purpose of life is to be your creative best, to flourish, to blossom, to imagine, to vibrate as much as possible, okay?
So what is important is that if we all at the same time want something to be true, it becomes true, okay? So who’s the most famous person in the world? Jesus, right? So Jesus is immortal, he’s eternal, because there are 2,000 people in the world who love him, who imagine him all the time, who believe that he’s part of their lives. And because of their imagination, Jesus is still with us today, but he’s on a high vibration, okay, all right?
The Resurrection: Opening Yourself to Christ Consciousness
So he’s a high vibration, Jesus. And the question is, how do you resurrect Jesus? How do you bring him back? And the answer is by making your body a vessel for Jesus to return in, okay? Your body can become a portal for Jesus to inhabit, to possess, if you welcome Jesus through certain spiritual practices, okay? Including love, generosity, forgiveness, all right?
If someone killed your son, you may hate that person, but if you’re able to forgive that person and show true forgiveness, because listen, if someone killed my children, I’d be pissed off, okay? I would hate that person forever. But if you’re able to, to yourself, forgive that person of your own free choice, you open yourself up to divinity, okay? And this divinity can now flow into you. And this is what we call the Christ consciousness or the second coming of Jesus.
So if you are a Christian, you believe that Jesus will return. And Christian mystics believe that, yes, he can always return if you open your heart to Jesus. But you have to construct your body, your mind, your consciousness in a way that allows for Jesus to inhabit you, okay?
The Secret of the Universe: Immortality, Reincarnation, and Godhood
So this is the secret of the universe. The world, the universe exists in our consciousness. The consciousness is what’s real. The material is what’s false. And as we imagine, we participate in the universe, we change the universe. And we focus on a certain reality, that reality becomes manifest. It becomes reality itself, okay? And by living in the memories of others, we become immortal like Jesus. And by constructing our own lives in a way that allows for Jesus to return, we can resurrect Jesus in ourselves.
Okay, so that’s a good secret of the universe. This is the secret to immortality, reincarnation, and godhood. These three things. And most of us will fail. But it’s okay, because why? Because our consciousness is forever. So reincarnation means that when we die, we can escape back to the spiritual, and then maybe a thousand years later, we come back. Okay, so it’s a constant cycle where we’re trying to achieve these three things, immortality, reincarnation, and godhood. And the secret is love, power in our imagination, okay? We’re here to imagine things.
The Secret of the Great Books
PROFESSOR JIANG: Okay, so this is a great secret of the universe. This is a secret that religions have passed on through thousands of years of human history, and which schools, science, governments, all the powers that be try to suppress, because it is a direct threat to this reality, okay? This reality is false, but they want to make it real because they derive power from this reality. Okay, does that make sense, guys?
Okay, everything that you’ve been taught in school, everything that you’ve learned in science class is complete and utter nonsense. This is what’s true, okay?
The Great Books as a Path to Enlightenment
Okay, so now that we understand all of this, we can also understand the great books, because what I will show you this semester is if you truly want to achieve these three things — mortality, reincarnation, godhood — the secret lies in the great books. The great books are constructed in a way that allows you to access the entire secrets of the universe, okay?
So what the great books are, it is a capturing of the universe in a state. And as a result, there’s a universe within the great books. And by embracing the great books, by letting the great books coming to you, and then you enter the great books, you have the capacity to travel in a new universe, but you also have the capacity now to create your own universe. And that’s what the great books are, okay? They are the secret of what it means to be human. They provide a secret of how to be truly, fully human.
All right? And what we’ll do is this. This is not meant to be, okay, a semester later on, like three months from now, “Oh, you’ll be immortal. You’ll be God.” No, no, that’s not the way it works, okay? What I will show you is a path, but it’s up to you to focus and sacrifice yourself on this path into enlightenment, okay?
Metaphor, a simple analogy is, everyone knows swimming is the best exercise in the world, right? Well, if I just say, “Go swim,” that doesn’t mean you learn how to swim in one day. It’ll take you decades to learn how to swim really well. We all know meditation is really good for you, right? It’ll take you decades to fully learn how to meditate well.
Okay, so this is a journey that is lifelong, but it’s a journey that requires sacrifice. It’s a journey that requires you to fully learn the great books. I can’t teach you all the great books. I can’t teach you all the secrets of the great books. I can only give you a framework, okay? And you must abandon this materiality that is false, okay? Abandon money, power, sex, fame, and focus on embracing great books. And when you do that, the universe comes into you, okay?
Welcoming the Greatest Minds into Your Consciousness
Christians want to be possessed by Jesus. They want Jesus to enter them and resurrect Jesus, create the Christ consciousness in them. What we want to do is we want to welcome the greatest minds of human civilization, the prophets of our time, the prophets of humanity, including Homer, Plato, Dante, Kant, into our consciousness so we can be fully human, okay?
So we’re going to do what the Christians want to do, but instead of Jesus, we’ll have Homer, Dante, Kant, Plato, and anyone else you want, okay? Like, it’s your choice who you want to come and possess you, who you want to come and enter you, okay?
I will teach you the power, the secret to resurrect Homer and Dante inside of you. But again, first of all, it’s your choice. Second of all, you must abandon the world to do this. And third of all, you must dedicate the entire life to doing this, okay? So this class is meant to be a sample, okay? But it’s not meant to provide all the answers.
Q&A
Okay, any questions? So you have a question? Okay.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, so back to the model you draw on the screen about the wall and the shadow.
The Allegory of the Cave: Power, Deception, and True Freedom
AUDIENCE: So for people who you said be slaves, and for the people who create a shadow that they are trying to create the reality for those people who was called slaves, but for those slaves, people that they think this is like the shadow on wall, those things are the reality, and those things for them are the phenomena of the world. So how could they like to escape them and to chase the real, not the-
PROFESSOR JIANG: Okay, I understand, okay. Yeah, okay. You don’t really understand what’s going on, okay? All right, let me explain again, okay? You think you know, okay, but you don’t know what’s really happening, okay?
All right, these prisoners, they’re the ones who have the capacity to create reality. Okay, you understand this. Now the powers behind them, these people will have the power to create reality. So what I need to do is trick them into creating the reality that I want them to create. Does that make sense?
Okay, so these are the powers that be and they hide in the shadows and they give you tricks. They use deception, manipulation in order to trick you into thinking that you’re a slave and they’re tricking you into wanting to create a reality that they want you to create, but which you think you want to create, okay? And that’s how the world works.
We are the ones with the power of God. We’re the ones with imagination. The ones behind us don’t have an imagination. They have power, but they don’t have imagination, okay? So they need to trick us into wanting to create the world they want us to create. And this is how the world works, guys, right?
The Illusion of Freedom: School, Money, and Social Conditioning
Why do we go to school being a slave? We say, “I’m not being a slave, I’m being free. I’m in school so I can get into a good college, make a lot of money, and live a happy life, okay?” You’ve been tricked.
But the truth is, no, no, no. You don’t need money to be happy. You don’t need anything to be happy. You have yourself, okay? You have your imagination. You have the capacity to love anyone. If you just love your mother, if you just love your father, if you love everyone around you, you’ll be happy.
You don’t need money. “No, no, no, I need a billion dollars to buy my brother a Porsche. I need to buy my mother a yacht. That’s what my mother really wants.” You’ve been tricked, okay? That’s how the world works.
Refusing to Be a Slave: The Fear of Social Isolation
So, it’s really easy. Just say to yourself, “I’m a slave, and I refuse to be a slave. I refuse to listen to what everyone tells me.” And that’s the hardest thing to do in the world because it would mean your rejection from reality, right? It would mean, “Oh, I have no more friends. My parents hate me. I’m a loser. Everyone makes fun of me at school,” all right?
So, that’s the reality we live in. We fear social isolation. We fear being laughed at. So, we just go with the flow, even though in our hearts, we know this is all a lie. This school, what the teachers teach us, it’s all nonsense. Chat GPT, it lies to us all the time.
Sticking money, it’s going to make me unhappy. Why am I sticking money? That’s for yourself, because you fear social condemnation. You fear being laughed at. That’s why you want money. That’s what you want to do while in school. Once you accept that, you’re free.
Can you do that? No, no, no, you can’t do that. Because all your life, you’ve been brainwashed and you’re thinking the thing you see is what’s real, okay? Through movies, through school, through parenting, through friends, through reality, okay? So, that’s what fear’s algorithm teaches us.
So, guess what, guys? You’ll probably fail, but if you’re able to succeed, you’ll be truly free and happy and imaginative and that will allow you to ascend into immortality. Yeah, yeah? So, there’s the state of being free and the state of being enslaved.
Can there be a slave that consciously realizes that they’re being enslaved and also consciously refuses to go out to embrace freedom? Sorry, that’s what a slave is, though, right? A slave is someone who wants to be a slave, who chooses to be a slave, because it’s all choice. It’s all free will, right? I cannot make you do this. I cannot make you, force you to lie to yourself. You have to choose to lie to yourself. You understand?
Don’t think you’re being coerced. Don’t think you are being enslaved. You choose to come to school. You choose to be lied to. You choose to accept the things as they are. Free will is the number one principle of the universe, okay? When you say, like, I’m forced to be a slave, you’re lying to yourself. It’s always been your choice. Okay, does that make sense? It’s always been your choice.
These prisoners, they probably could break those chains, okay? And what do you think is going to happen when this guy who’s seen the real world, when he comes and tells everyone, “Hey, guys, I’ve seen the real world. Let’s get out of here.” What’s going to happen to him? They’re going to kill him, right? That’s what Plato says. If you dare speak the truth and people know the truth, they will kill you for speaking the truth.
Alright? So, don’t try to convince anyone of the truth. Just know the truth for yourself and be free yourself. But you can never, ever convince someone who doesn’t want to listen. Okay? Don’t try it. They’ll just kill you. Okay? Did you have a question? Does that make sense?
It’s Always Been Your Choice
So this is really important for you to understand. It’s always been your choice. But it’s easier for you to think, “No, no, it’s not my choice. I’ve been coerced. It’s not my choice to come to school. It’s not my choice to go get a job. Because if I don’t get a job, I’m going to starve.” No, you won’t. Okay?
And remember, in the real world, death doesn’t really mean anything. Okay? Death just means a release. You trick yourself into thinking that death is the worst thing that could happen to you. When in reality, it’s slavery that’s the worst thing that could happen to you. You fear death, but you are living death right now. Okay? And that’s what the great books will teach you.
Why Do We Feel Pain?
AUDIENCE: What about the subjective physical feeling of pain in reality?
PROFESSOR JIANG: Oh, okay, yeah. Alright, yeah. So, the question is, why do we feel pain? And why do we have bodies? And the reason why is that the universe is constructed in a way to promote imagination. Okay? Because the universe, what it’s trying to do is vibrate more. Vibrate more just means imagine more. And if you can’t feel pain, if you can’t suffer, if you can’t lose, if there’s no evil, you can’t imagine things. Okay? Does that make sense?
Right? If everything was so easy, nothing would ever have any meaning. Okay? So let’s just say you want a really good body, and you go to the gym, and then you just drink some water, you just lie around for like 10 hours, and then you have this amazing physique. Well, that would just not be beneficial to anyone, okay? If you want to have meaning, you have to struggle for it. And that requires pain and suffering.
So even though, yeah, the question then is like, if this world is one of death, one of pain, one of suffering, why are we in this world? To improve our imagination. Okay? Because only through pain and suffering can you truly achieve your full potential as a human. That’s why these monks meditate for decades in the snow, because they understand that pain is what allows you to focus your mind.
Without evil, there can be no good. If everyone’s good, then like, what’s the point of being good? It’s only when everyone is evil, and you choose to be good, that’s what gives meaning to your life.
Closing Remarks and Reading List
That’s what gives meaning to the universe. Does that make sense? All right. Any more questions?
Okay, and again, I know this sounds kind of strange, but you actually read the great books. First of all, you will recognize that’s what they’re saying. But also, what’s more important is they’re going to give you the energy, the strength, the power to liberate yourself if you truly open your heart to the great books, okay?
So the great books we will start with is Iliad by Homer, then we’ll go to the Odyssey, again by Homer, then the Republic by Plato, the Aeneid by Virgil, which is not a great book, by the way, but we have to read it anyway, okay? And then Divine Comedy by Dante. And then I’ll figure out some other books we can read, depending on how things go, okay? So I’d like to meet Kant, the Critique of Pure Reason, but we may not have time, okay? So that’s the plan for the semester. Thank you. Thank you.
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