[Note: I had to turn on the word verification thing for comments after 52 spam comments yesterday. I have to wonder . . . does the insurance industry endorse the practice of generating leads by sapmming blogs?]
swan wrote yesteray, very eloquently, about (among other things) "seeking." From her post:
"I've come to sense that maybe, my path is quieter than some. Maybe it is similar to something that happened to my spiritual walk a few years back:
For years, I'd seen myself as a "spiritual seeker." Then one day, I came to understand that I'd gotten hooked on the SEEKING. I started to notice that it no longer mattered what I was looking for, it was the act of seeking that was driving me... I began to wonder if there would come a point in the spiritual questing when I might FIND whatever IT was, and if, at that point, it would be appropriate to QUIT seeking. That realization seemed to quiet my heart, spiritually, and settle me into a place that ended much of the frantic looking for truth that had preceeded it."
There is an important truth for Me swan's statements above. But I need to backtrack a little bit in order to really discuss it clearly.
I take the following statements as axioms. I certainly can't "prove" them to anyone else's satisfaction. But for Me the following are basic truths. How and why that is . . . is well, another story, a long one.
1. There is an underlying order to the universe that extends beyond what is discoverable by rational/scientific means.
2. The "mundane" world that we see and interact with on a daily basis is a relfection of a part of that underlying order. That is, the world we see/feel/smell/touch/think about is a partial image of that order, not the order itself. And that image is affected/distorted by our perceptions of it.
3. There is a value in seeking to know/understand what that order is.
4. Understanding that order implies the possibility of moving beyond certain boundries that we have come to accept as final and unalterable.
Given all that, the desire to seek can be (one might argue should be) overwhelming. And often it is. And, as swan wrote about above, it feels really good. And that it feels really good is both the hook, and, often, the downfall.
Because what I've found is that when our thoughts and actions become addictive/obsessive, one is pushed further from the thing one was trying to understand, even when the thing sought is in and of itself beautiful, positive, uplifting, powerful, all-encomapssing, and amazing.
What a cruel irony! Why should this be so?
Well, part of it has to do with Axiom #2, above. If our perceptions can affect/distort the "surface order," then it's not that much of a stretch to say that those perceptions in large part create and maintain the surface order. If our thoughts and perceptions nourish the thing that's masking the thing we are truly seeking, then thinking about it more makes the obstacle(s) to true understanding bigger. The "quieter path" swan writes of is the essence of the way, the slow, almost imperceptibly advancing way, towards that bigger understanding.
Another aspect is just, well . . . human nature. We are creatures of action, at base. We are trained from birth to affect our surroundings, not just to be in them. (Not to veer off into Venus and Mars territory, but it's worth noting that while the two sexes typcially are conditioned to take different kinds of actions in the world, what unites the sexes -- being creatures of action -- is far greater than what divides them.) So, to "just be" is not a natural or comfortable sensation for most people. And, it should be said, in the long run, not productive to arriving at that deeper understanding anyway. But the compulsion to act, again, often feeds the thing that's hiding the underlying order from us.
So there's a fine line. One must seek, and what is sought, in this realm, is the single most important thing one can hope to discover. But the seeking can't become an end in of itself, else we will find ourselves inexorably, subtly pushed away from where we thought we were going. Where exactly is that fine line? I can confidently say that I have absoluely no idea. Hopefully knowing that there is a line will enable Me to someday find it.
Thanks, swan, for an inspiring post at a time when it was much needed.
1 comment:
In some circles, one prays to have revealed the path one should be on. Not for any specific thing.
I believe that of which you wrote is of a kind with this idea.
That is, one doesn't "try" to discern the path, but simply be open to recognizing it when it appears.
To some extent, I liken it to a physical phenomenon of the human eye, due to our biological development. At dusk or in the early dark, when colors are too dim to fire the cones, one sees only with the rods. Rods see black and white, and are arrayed further out on the periphery of the back of the eye than are cones.
Thus, in those hours, one oftens sees better an object better by looking nearby to, but not directly at it. To look directly at it is to "see" it with unfiring cones. To look away, but be receptive to the image, is to allow the rods to sense it.
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