Jose Vasconcelos
TODOLOGIA
The Logic of the Whole View


Without the aid of the Urantia Papers, Jose Vasconcelos had a philosophical understanding of the all encompassing enegy of God and the order behind chaos. He saw the whole picture through the outworking of the Trinity and realized the light and life potential of mankind. While taking a Philosophy course on Latin American Philosophers I discovered the incredible writings of Vasconcelos and felt as though we had shared a vision. Hoepfully his name will eventually stand beside the great philosophers of this world. He looked for the truth and found it in everything.
José Vasconcelos author, philosopher, politician was born in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1882, to parents of European ancestry. Active in Mexican politics, he was exiled during the eras of Porfirio Díaz and Carranza, served as rector of the National University and as Minister of Education. He graduated from law school in 1907. Vasconcelos, served twice as Minister of Education and also held the position of Rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Vasconcelos exerted a profound influence on Mexican culture by promoting education for the lower classes and encouraging popular exposure to literature. He experienced his most productive years as an author during the 1930s, following an unsuccessful campaign for the presidency of Mexico in 1929.

In The Cosmic Race his influential 1925 essay, Vasconcelos predicted the coming of a new age, the Aesthetic Era, in which joy, love, fantasy, and creativity would prevail over the rationalism he saw as dominating the present age. In this new age, marriages would no longer be dictated by necessity or convenience, but by love and beauty. Ethnic obstacles, already in the process of being broken down, especially in Latin America, would disappear altogether, giving birth to a fully mixed race, a "cosmic race," in which all the better qualities of each race would persist by the natural selection of love. http://128.220.50.88/press/books/titles/s97/s97vaco.htm

Jose Vasconcelos said "Within this system (system of life) man is the highest expression of the principle that makes reality intelligible. The highest degree of coordination of the heterogeneous flux is carried out by man's consciousness through the synthesis of knowledge. 1.
Some of you may ask, What is heterogeneous flux? Well, the definition of Heterogeneous is - that which is made up of dissimilar elements; and Flux - Is a state of continuous change.
I think Vasconcelos is saying that there is order in chaos. That there is a synthesis of all those dissimilar elements of the stuff we are made of. That synthesis is constant, even in the face of flux - continuous change.
He goes on to say that, "man is a genuine although small reflection of the universe and that therefore he constitutes a true microcosm." 2. With that statement, I believe he is trying to explain the flow of divine creative energy from the tiniest particle, down through the evolution of matter: flora, fauna and at last, man. Man endowed with a transcendental soul and a man which, interacts with a cosmic mind and creates his reality along with God.
Vasconcelos says the "notion of beings belongs to the experiential order. It is not an idea, for further ideas proceed from it. It is not a vision because all visions proceed from being. Nor is it a rumor since all sounds first find their source in being. The notion of being is not negative but the most positive that exists. The I Am Who I Am is the foundation of the world." "Being is a synthesis from which all flows. Ideas, memories, premonitions, feelings, sensations, all stem from the complex singularity of Absolute being and from our consciousness, which is its image. We are therefore a microcosm, an abbreviation of the Universe, unique, extraneous to the generic, yet made to understand all genders. It conquers gravity, even as spirit transcends the body." 3. We are self-realized.
Let us next look at the fact that we, mankind, are self-realized. "I think - therefore I am." Following that path of thought is how I understand the connection of man's mind and through its deductive activity, our recognition of self as Vasconcelos did.
Just as the sculptor, beginning a new work, must first visualize in his mind what it is he is trying to sculpt and see it in the slab of marble, and the carpenter who designed the chairs we now sit in visualized them in his mind before they existed, so I must deduce that this is the normal process of man's ability to create. We must first conceive an idea before it can be put into form or action.
It was this discovery that led me to follow through the process of the same realization of Divinity and the inevitable delineation of Divine mind and Divine energy that led to the necessity of our being. I say necessity because as far as experience goes - there is not any in perfection.
Source - or God - or the UnCaused is perfect, and because of that perfection even though complete, there is no experience. So in order to have experience vicariously, He had to divest Himself of all activities (save the initial cause) involved in the manifestation of that experience in order to participate in it. God then witnessed the probable shattering of Himself into unique facets of his own personality and set them in existential motion. This induced a time space condition and made room in the Absoluteness of perfection for the evolving existential facet of His being. Therefore, we were the necessary and inevitable outcome of his desire to have experience.
All of man's reality, the reality witnessed by mind, must have been conceived by ultimate mind. Contained in that conception lies the world of forms, which Plato saw so clearly, the pattern of everything that could be is just waiting for our recognition of it. This is part of the grand scheme, and the impetus to dare us to conceive through the recognition of form, the source of all form.
I will try to give my interpretation of Vasconcelos' understanding of Absolute Being and why we "feel like small kings of the universe" 4 when we connect with that Absolute being, when we realize we are not alone. When we realize as he did that the soul survives to participate in the further evolution of "Deity."
(SIDE BAR)

As universe foundation is material,
the essence of life is Spirit, Ethereal
Matter and energy are diverse, yet the same
both are inherent in the Absolutes frame.

And as our scientists discover a new energy pattern
physicists will be close to the mystery of matter
But try as they must, they will never impart
the flash of life, the Spirit of heart
For life is the prerogative of the Universal Father
and the Creator Son who created our brothers.

And Though science will eventually understand
the many divisions of matter
Even in division, separation will blend
to form the expanse of the latter;

Ultimatonic; the electrons mother

Subelectronic; solar supergasses brother

Electronic matter; material differentiation,
precedes

Subatomic; of our suns affirmation

Shattered atoms; cooling suns in space,
Are followed by

Ionized; matter x-rayed

Atomic matter; in chemical stage
Paves the way of the

Stable; molecular phase

Radioactive; spawns matter disÙorganized
and at last is

Collapsed; as a great sun dies.

So light, heat, electricity
magnetism, chemism, energy
They form the basis of past, present, future
as the core of existential aperture.

And try as we will in sciences depth
we will never dissect the Life in God's breath
For the salient magnitude of God's creative force
far surpasses man's ability of source.

Imagination cannot even grasp
the grandeur of exaction
And the perfection of both action and might
to the tiniest fraction.

For if mass of matter magnifies
an electron to 1/10th of an ounce
The volume thus intensified
would hold the earth in its house.

And if its heavier proton
fit the head of a pin
Its circumference would encompass
earth's orbital spin.

So minuscule man must accept
the Omnipotence of Source
And understand he is but one tiny speck
in the multitudinous energy force.

For as atoms contain 100 electrons, they segregate as they spin
In the center are 30, observed as one
then 30 more their next of kin
30 others form the 3rd energy zone
held in a definite orbit
10 remain as a dignified lot
and mother nucleus allows them to exit.

And as atoms proceed the first 27
we are able to comprehend
But in 26 more predictability wanes
and the Unqualified Absolute extends.

For atoms are likened to persons
predictability in groups
But statistics tend to lose their grip
when one is on the loose.

So the positive of pro's and the negative of neut's
become cohesive from the Meso's
And to and fro they are bandied about
both held in check by this pathos.

And atomic cohesion, its parody
lies in wait as scientists will see
As mesotrons ride the rays of space
microcosmic discovery paints infinity's face.

Yet in all these embroiling forces we find
the separate consummation of undecipherable mind
For mind in its ability to conceive
creates, designs, sends and receives.

In universal mechanisms, mind abounds
but its total observations
Are held in scope by the ability of
the capacity of investigation.

The evolution of mechanisms indicates and implies
concealed presence, dominance of creative mind
And as mortal intellect devises and creates
man's intelligence progresses to spiritual states.

For spirit is the architect, the builder, the mind,
the body ,the edifice, where these two reside.
And spirit awakens imaginative reality
reflecting parts of time space totality
For in mortal man, his mind is the key
of freewill submission to a spiritual lead.

And spirit acquiesces to whence it came
in choice, personality ascends to its infinite name.


The last stanza "in choice personality ascends to it's infinite name", is a reflection of Vasconcelos' statement: "it is essential for the soul to coordinate the internal elements with the external in order to affirm within the universe the presence of an autonomous quantum of energy, a living factor a unity that operates within the physical but belongs to the spirit." 5.
Vasconcelos also speculates that it is the responsibility of science to discover the order behind the chaos and identify the spiritual mind connection. This is an idea which theologians have debated for eons. Vasconcelos is saying: "Theology is the study of the actions and reactions of the human spirit; it can never become a science since it must always be combined more or less with psychology in its personal expression and with philosophy in its systematic portrayal. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another's religion is psychology.

When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings. 6.
Vasconcelos believes the Universal Father, being self-existent, is also self-explanatory; that he actually lives in every rational mortal. However, he also knows you cannot be sure about God unless you know him. Sonship is the only experience, which makes fatherhood certain. Vasconcelos sees that the universe is everywhere undergoing change. In addition, he understands that a changing universe is a dependent universe and such a creation cannot be either final or absolute. A finite universe is wholly dependent on the Ultimate and the Absolute. He explains the universe and God are not identical; one is cause, the other effect. The cause is absolute, infinite, eternal, and changeless; the effect, time-space and transcendental but ever changing, always growing.
"Science indicates Deity as a fact; philosophy presents the idea of an Absolute; religion envisions God as a loving spiritual personality. Revelation affirms the unity of the fact of Deity, the idea of the Absolute, and the spiritual personality of God and, further, presents this concept as our Father--the universal fact of existence, the eternal idea of mind, and the infinite spirit of life. 7.
Vasconcelos recognizes his being is a spark of God and since we are persons, we must invariably recognize God: the source of person-ality and acknowledge that he is the Father of personality and the Father of all that is. And through the infinity of God, our Father the immortality of personality is possible. That is why Vasconcelos says we feel like "small kings of the universe." 8. It is the ultimate adventure of man to find his Father God in himself, every man and in the universe. Moreover, it is the leap of faith that bridges the gulf between the physical self and spiritual self, the soul that takes over that adventure at death. Nevertheless, you must choose this adventure of your own free will.
In summary Vasconcelos says: "The whole operation (Todologia) of the will, beginning with its appearance in the cells that lengthen the cilia in order to acquire nourishment, is a process and an effort to subdue the environment to the purposes of an obscure or clear intention that operates in organisms, from the cell to the soul." (pg 65) There is order in chaos. There is a plan and we participate in this plan with our free will. "Our soul moves by intentions". 9.
I will leave you with a final thought, which I think is in line with Vasconcelos' philosophy, but stated in the way I understand it.

Existence follows natural laws
it continues expanding in spite of the flaws
for all exist in time and space
but our times of existence
are not held in place
for time can't be lost
and space can't be found
and to each dimension
nothing is bound
for everything is nothing
and nothing's repressed
where all are contained.
and all manifest...
smk

BIBLIOGRAPHY.
1. Pg. 56 Latin American Philosophy, Prometheus Books, NY, 1986
2. Ibid. Pg. 54
3. Ibid. Pg. 59
4. Ibid. Pg. 59
5. Ibid. Pg. 60
6. Pg. 1235, The Urantia Book, The Urantia Foundation, Chicago, IL 1955
7. Ibid. (7) Pg. 1122
8. Ibid. (1) Pg. 59
9. Ibid (1) Pg. 63
10


10