ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the contemplative visualization technique, known as the “View from Above”, drawing on many passages in ancient texts. The notion of personal identity in Stoicism is explained in terms of their pantheism and the doctrine that the individual must be viewed as part of the whole universe, not as something isolated or alienated from the rest of Nature. The View from Above describes the exercise of picturing events as though seen from high overhead but this is related to the larger concept of cosmology or ancient Physics, which tries to imagine the whole of space and time. The contemplation of the View from Above or Stoic cosmology can be compared to an attempt to imagine the whole of creation as perceived by Zeus and emulate a godlike perspective on life. The View from Above naturally leads us to contemplate the transience of material things, including our own mortality.
