Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher of the late 6th century BCE. His thoughts centered on criticizing his predecessors and contemporaries for their failure to see the unity in experience. His focus was on the idea of an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense. Opposed to the Christian ideas of an everlasting God who represents the eternal truth, Heraclitus taught that opposites are necessary for life, and that the everlasting truth was a law of constant exchange between opposites, that the universe is unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The world itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements. Below are commentaries of come of his thoughts:
Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life.
This idea tried to get a philosophical handle on the conflict which Greeks wrote into their mythology. The gods were constantly dragging humans through their own soap-opera like lives. The mortals were trying to emulate the lives of the immortal, and the immortal gods, who should have lived by a higher code which represented their divine nature, were trapped in the emotional chaos of mortals.
This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.
Heraclitus tried to find reason for the existence of the earth, and man by lowering the ideas of divine influence to karma like philosophy. The world and all life was nothing more than a give and take. The earth, and its inhabitants reaped what they sowed, no more and no less.
To God all things are beautiful, good, and right; human beings, on the other hand, deem some things right and others wrong.
Heraclitus again tries to discern the difference between the gods and men. In their mythology, the affairs of both were becoming increasingly similar. But Heraclitus knew that there had to be a difference between how god viewed his creation and how man saw the same. Personally, I think Heraclitus fell into the same fatalistic trap with which many philosophers struggle. Without a personal relationship with a living, loving God, Heraclitus was left to wrestle with the inadequacy of his finite thoughts to try to describe the Infinite.
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