| Over two and a half thousand years ago, at a time | | | | his feet escaped his notice." 1 |
| when human beings were just beginning to think | | | | Another leading member of the Milesian school was |
| about the world they lived in, an extraordinary | | | | Anaximenes who regarded air as the first principle of |
| concept was being articulated by the very earliest | | | | all things. His 'air' was rather more than the kind we |
| philosophers of Ancient Greece. Ever since that time | | | | breathe. The Greek word he used was pneuma |
| this idea has been emphasised by many great | | | | which referred to 'the breath of the cosmos.' The |
| philosophers including Socrates, the Buddha, Jesus and | | | | equivalent Latin word is spiritus in which case he |
| Gandhi. Yet we still haven't understood the secret | | | | clearly meant what we call 'spirit', that is, 'the spirit of |
| that has the power to change our lives - simply by | | | | the cosmos.' |
| changing the way we think about life. | | | | As Yale physics professor Lawrence Krauss writes, |
| It's the secret of the meaning of life. | | | | "Anaximenes' pneuma was more than mere |
| These earliest philosophers lived in Ancient Greece | | | | atmosphere; it had the germ of all creation and was |
| around 600 BC, first the Milesians who came from | | | | therefore divine. As air gave breath to life, so |
| Miletus in Ionia (present-day Turkey). | | | | pneuma maintained the stable pattern of existence." |
| It's founder was said to have been Thales who was | | | | 2 |
| born (c.624 BC) about a hundred and fifty years | | | | Empedocles was born about 494 BC and at an early |
| before Socrates. He is regarded as the founder of | | | | age made his home in Sicily. There he was regarded |
| Greek philosophy, therefore of Western philosophy. | | | | almost as a god and many miracles were attributed |
| All we know about him are a few passing remarks | | | | to him. The following brief quote from his writings |
| made by his contemporaries. The later Greek | | | | speaks volumes: "For before this [life] I was born |
| philosopher Aristotle wrote that he speculated on the | | | | once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, |
| properties of the soul, that it was endowed with the | | | | and a darting fish in the sea." 3Clearly he was talking |
| power of motion. There are various stories of his | | | | about pre-existence (of the soul) and reincarnation. |
| travels in Egypt which may have been the source of | | | | Here, then, from the very dawning of rational (and |
| his ideas. According to Aristotle, some Milesians | | | | written) thought, from the world of Ancient Greece, |
| believed that the real, the underlying substance of | | | | I found my first three clues to the meaning of life: |
| the world, is an unchanging, unified reality. | | | | - the idea of a true unified, unchanging reality of all |
| The secret was out. | | | | things; |
| It seems that Thales was a brilliant astronomer for | | | | - pneuma as the divine pattern permeating all |
| his time. Apparently he was the first to predict a | | | | existence; |
| solar eclipse in 585 BC. Plato tells the story that "a | | | | - and the pre-existence of the soul. |
| witty and attractive Thracian servant-girl is said to | | | | REFERENCES: |
| have mocked Thales for falling into a well while he | | | | 1. Plato, 'Theaetetus,' |
| was observing the stars and gazing upwards; | | | | 2. Krauss, Lawrence, 'The Fifth Essence,' page 11. |
| declaring that he was eager to know the things in | | | | 3. Smith, T.V. (ed), 'From Thales to Plato,' page 33. |
| the sky, but that what was behind him and just by | | | | |