His philosophy mirrors the Kashmir Shaivism edit
Heraclitus was a forerunner of Kashmir Shaivism (a monistic idealistic philosophy that had its maximum during 700-1100 A.D.). In different cultures, epochs and countries, both systems converged on the same ideas:
- adherence to non-duality from the ultimate perspective
- "to God all things are fair and good and just"
- "the A is both A and not-A"
- the consistence of the world is mental
- he refers to "the thought by which all things are steered through all things"
- God is both material cause (like "pots are made of clay") of efficient cause (like "pots are made by the potter")
- he describes the objective(exterior) reality in a constant state of flux; similarly, K.S. describes the world as a product of continuous acts of creation and dissolution
- "everything is in a state of flux"
- "simultaneously it forms and dissolves"
- the pratibimba (reflection) and bheda-abheda (duality-cum-nonduality) concepts
- "one is made up of all things and all things issue from the one"
- the world is made of a series of ever more subtle cattegories (tattvas) born one of the previous one
- "the death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water"
- the K.S. theory of abhasa universe is seen as a series of instantaneous flashes
- "each object must dissolve and be generated continually momentarily"
- he perceived the nature in a mystical way, different from the common norm
- quoted "nature likes to hide"
- focus on "the word" (logos) as substrate is identical to the Kashmir Shaivism focus on paravak
- Heraclitus seems to have been a mystic
- he wandered the mountains ... making his diet of grass and herbs
- he wrote philosophical texts just like the tantrics, encoding them so as not to be easy to read
- Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" (asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it
- both philosohies are panentheistic