Dialogue ~ 34

How often do we take what we are familiar with in the world for granted? We become accustomed to our body moving as we intend it to, the kettle switching on so that we can make a warm drink and so on. Yes, there might be problems to sort out and there will be experiences of pleasure but beyond (or underneath) all of that, can people claim that their experience of life is jaw dropping in its magnificent entirety?

Is it the ‘hum drum’ of modern day living which has given rise to thrill seekers (extreme sports) who are attempting to move into a deeper relationship with life? Despite the outward appearances, is there that which they have in common with those who we refer to as rebels? Is there the common ground of dissatisfaction with an experience of superficiality and an impetus to change it in some way, whether that is through diving head first into it or otherwise rejecting it?

Restlessness, agitation, the stirring up of the eddies of waters, well it is uncomfortable but if we allow for the laws of thermodynamics, then it is a natural part of the changing of what is in a closed system. The floodgates of what is being seen and how it is being experienced are being thrown open to reveal another terrain for however long that will suffice before change is instigated again. Life is not static and in that Heraclitus was right. People have differing views of how movement or transformation of life is possible. The urge (or will) to ‘become’ and to ‘know oneself’ is potent as well as it is intoxicating, but from which direction is this steam flowing?

How does one transform not simply what one sees but how it is perceived (like putting on a different pair of spectacles)? Would that leave the world untouched and yet radically transformed? Is that the kingdom of which Jesus spoke or in other religions or philosophies of a ‘world which has yet to be born’? Not from nothing as that would be impossible, nor either from the ashes of a diminished worldview. Nothing is born and nothing dies. How does that translate into the realms of what is possible for human beings to know of the world?

Various philosophies have informed us that ‘appearances are deceptive’ and yet it is the faculties of reason which have imbued our world view with those same obscuring images. Why is it that we often endeavour to change the terrain rather than to embark upon the ‘hero’s quest’ of ‘changing the way one sees’?

What is it that makes the ordinary ‘extraordinary’ and enlivens or animates our experience of being in the world? Is whatever it is mysteriously bestowed upon us (an act of grace) or is it an accomplishment or actualisation of what it means to be human? Are both referring to the same thing?

In his book ‘The Way of the Explorer’ Dr Edgar Mitchell wrote “… I was beginning to be quite sure that at this demarcation of mind and matter both the classical scientific paradigm and theological thought break down. They each have something entirely different to say about how mind and body interact.”

The body (its senses) provides us with information of the world. The mind (intellect) sifts through this data, builds relationships with and constructs our world view. What gives us feelings about life, about people? What is joy and love? Is it connection (shared purpose, friendship), empathy, compassion? We say they are of the soul or perhaps the virtues of what it means to be human.

Do we have a triplicate nature (spirit-mind-body) and does each aspect offer a unique perspective of the world? What happens if one aspect of being overpowers another and there is an experience of dissonance? Do we reject the body or materialism of the world and yearn for transcendent experience? Do we become automated and efficient programs or gratify repeatedly?

Is dissatisfaction with how things appear to be a message for us to pay attention to the forces which are at work within the self? What is so uncomfortable about being willing to sit with and to change one’s relationship with the self? This is the act of listening that I was referring to in my previous writing.

I wrote, “… Right there is what is causing the suffering in the world. The belief that the world as we see it is simply all that there is. Even when we say that we think or hope or have faith that something more exists beyond the boundaries of perception, the biggest obstacle to our crossing that great divide within ourselves is our attachment to life itself. Nothingness has become equated with death or failure and is pushed away or feared.”

Can it be true that we would rather push onwards with any given course in life (even if what is unfolding reveals that something is distorted with that picture), simply because dissonance is uncomfortable or even intolerable and we do not have the will to listen?

Why do we not have ‘the will’ to listen? Because it is otherwise preoccupied, exerting itself (through force) in an act of trying to move away from the truth of one’s own being.

Does the condemning of ourselves simply add fuel to its fire?

Is there a natural ordering of how reasoning works, such that an enlivened or inclusive way of perceiving life only becomes available to us after we have relinquished trying to impose our own model of the world upon reality itself?

Dr Edgar Mitchell also wrote, “I wanted to become intimate with the velvety blackness that I’d felt so connected with on the way home from the moon. So I studied both the physical and the mystical simultaneously. But I recognised that the mystical cannot be experienced intellectually any more than one can learn to swim on dry land.”

What if the velvety blackness of which Dr Mitchell spoke, is a coherent experience within the self of that which is spiritual (or mystical as Dr Mitchell refers) and is intellectual and is physical? That it is an inclusive and unified experience of being in the world?

So you might ask, ‘how would we incorporate that ‘velvety blackness’ of being into an everyday consciousness of what it is to be human in the world?’ The good news is that we wouldn’t have to. We would be incorporated into the world as it is, rather than it being the other way around.

Remember what Jesus had said to his disciples when they had asked him about how the end would come? He replied, “Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.”

In other words, what is experiencing itself as a cycle is the will to become; it is that which ascends or is raised up or is brought back to life and it is another way of referring to the transformation which is occurring as one’s being is recognised as eternal.