Thursday, June 15, 2006

Seeing and Understanding
By Don Iannone

So much we don't see
or really understand in life.
What I don't see or understand
isn't of any real consequence to you.
It's important for you
to see and understand your life.
It's your mirror
and your life
that must meet
and tell the truth to each other.

10 comments:

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Ah Travis...Insightful observations and a great question.

Wonder what others reading this think about your question?

My view: There are illusory in nature, and so yes, they are reflections of experiences only.

Unknown said...

What we see in the mirror Travis is not really us. It's what you could call a tiny moment in time and space. It was there, but once you walk away from the mirror, it's gone. It's the same as with taking a picture of someone.

Does it tell us who that person is? Does it tell us the story of what truly happened for instance?

No, it doesn't. It's just an instance and it can be fabricated, even a person's image with make-up for instance. And in that perspective, everything from mirror to a picture, to even a video news item is in a way only a reflection, a ripled reflection.

Nevertheless it can change a person. You look to yourself and suddenly say: Hey, is that me? How awfull do I look. No, I can't stay living that way. Or you say: Hey, is that nature? Oh no, what have we done? We can't going on doing like we did to it.

It's maybe a reflection due to the experience, but the experience is being put upside down in this case because it was not good. It made you feel bad, look awfull.

Therefore the only true mirror of ourselves without a ripple will only be found within ourselves.

Are we only body or are we more than just body?

And if we say that we are only body and thus only nature: Why do many feel so bad about it, about this thought, about only being body and nothing else?

You see the occurrence of a change without looking in a mirror or anything like it?

There is more and only the concept of nature, only body starts to give many an uneasy feeling. They feel it's not right, that it's wrong. They feel it within themselves and not by looking into a mirror or statue of themselves or picture taken.

Their soul talks and they will know from that moment on that they will live.

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Bernadette,

Thanks for the thought-provoking comments.

You have an interesting perspective. Similar to a few other visitors, like maybe Jim over at Spiritual Hebrew.

Of the following four metaphysical worldviews, which do you feel the closest to:

1. Idealism: Only mind (or spirit) is real. Matter is an illusion and not real. Mind (or spirit) is ultimately causal in the universe.

2. Materialism: Only matter or matter-energy is real, and mind or spirit are illusions and not real. Only matter is causal. Mind (or spirit) is strictly epiphemomenal.

3. Dualism: Both mind (and spirit) and matter (body in this case) are both real and they exist separate from one another with neither having primacy over the other.

4. Panpsychism: Mind (consciousness or spirit) goes all the way down through all of life. Both mind and matter are real and both are causal, but mind is primary.

Unknown said...

Well, I think that I will have to answer 4 because that comes closest to what is said in the Torah, namely:

Love G-d with whole your body, mind and soul.

This states that everything is real and that all three do form a unity, a unity were G-d's spirit hovers around in a way of speaking when thinking about the very first chapter of Genesis.

To this I would like to add:

We live and so we do exist and you can only exist when you can come to accept the whole package that makes from us a living being, that tells us who we are and why we live.

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Bernadette: Thanks for the reply and further explanation.

Panpyschism comes closest for me as well.

Namaste.

Unknown said...

Yes Don, it makes us realize that every human being and nature is part of one whole entity so to speak.

We are people with gifts and even nature can become a help to those gifts. But, every gift is unique as every human being is unique. Even when some gifts within different persons can seem the same, they are not because the uniqueness of a person causes the gifts to be utilized by that person's very own unique characteristics.

Example: You have many people who have the same writing gift, but every one of them will use this gift differently and still every writer can in his/her way become a great asset to the whole of humankind.

In that way, all writers form one body, with a mind and a soul so to speak, even when they individually do have it too. But, all writers together do form on themselves a bond with those who are gifted with other skills, to publicize their material for instance so that others can read it and the readers in their life maybe will learn out of it for the better hopefully.

And this situation creates a kind of third body, mind and soul situation, which makes you conclude that every individual is part of the greater body, mind and soul where over G-d's spirit hovers. Every individual is in a way connected to all the other, to all life in fact.

Even when we may behave individually, we can't do without the other, without our neighbor's love as s/he can't do without our love for him/her.

Example:

One is electrician while his neigbor is plumber. The one can repair this and the other that. Both are in need of each other. But, take the one of them away, and the plumber will thumble into the dark for instance or the electrician will find his house flooded by water day in and day out, 24 hours a day.

Therefore no human being can really state that s/he doesn't need help because everyone of us is in need of the other's help one way or the other.

Unknown said...

As they say: One soul lost is a drama, a thousand souls lost is a disaster, a million souls lost a cataclysm while a billion souls lost an apocalyps.

And apocalyps is not meant here by the natural equivalent in the human psyche. It refers to all those beautifull gifts that are gone full of love for the other human being's needs.

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Bernadette...I deeply appreciate your thoughts. So well expressed.

It's all One. Inseparable from the start and inseparable to the end. Of course the soul exists in a timeless dimension and therefore there is no beginning or end.

CE said...

I'm glad we don't have to know or understand everything. Most things happen by themselves. The one intelligence make all things happen unaided. We don't need to wake up the sun; the sun wakes us up.

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

So true Imemine. Thanks.

Friends' Blogs