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25033 |
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Date: March 11, 2024 at 10:16:41
From: Nevada, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Our Limited Perspectives |
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Our Limited Perspectives
For Father Richard, contemplation begins as we realize
the limits of our own perspective. Reality is far
vaster than we can perceive.
Every viewpoint is a view from a point. Unless we
recognize and admit our own personal and cultural
viewpoints, we will never know how to decentralize our
own perspective. We will live with a high degree of
illusion that brings much suffering into the world. I
think this is what Simone Weil meant by stating, “The
love of God is the unique source of all certainties.”
[1] Only an outer and positive reference point utterly
grounds the mind and heart.
One of the keys to wisdom is that we must recognize our
own biases, our own addictive preoccupations, and those
things to which, for some reason, we refuse to pay
attention. Until we see these patterns (which is early-
stage contemplation), we will never be able to see what
we do not see. Without such critical awareness of the
small self, there is little chance that any individual
will produce truly great knowing or enduring wisdom.
[2]
Only people who have done their inner work can see
beyond their own biases to something transcendent,
something that crosses the boundaries of culture and
individual experience. People with a distorted image of
self, world, or God will be largely incapable of
experiencing what is Really Real in the world. They
will see things through a narrow keyhole. They’ll see
instead what they need reality to be, what they’re
afraid it is, or what they’re angry about. They’ll see
everything through their aggression, their fear, or
their agenda. In other words, they won’t see it at all.
That’s the opposite of true contemplatives, who have an
enhanced capacity to see what is, whether it’s
favorable or not, whether it meets their needs or not,
whether they like it or not, and whether that reality
causes weeping or rejoicing. Most of us will usually
misinterpret our experience until we have been moved
out of our false center. Until then, there is too much
of the self in the way. Most of us do not see things as
they are; we see things as we are. That is no small
point.
When we touch our deepest image of self, a deeper image
of reality, or a new truth about God, we’re touching
something that opens us to the sacred. We’ll want to
weep or to be silent, or to run away from it and change
the subject because it’s too deep, it’s too heavy. As
T. S. Eliot wrote, “human kind cannot bear very much
reality.” [3]
That’s why I—and so many others—emphasize
contemplation. It’s the way of going to the experience
of the absolute without going toward ideology. There’s
a difference. It’s going toward the experience of the
good, the true, the beautiful, the real without going
into a head trip, or taking the small self—or one’s
momentary vantage point—too seriously. [4]
Read this meditation on cac.org.
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Responses:
[25036] [25037] |
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25036 |
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Date: March 12, 2024 at 12:28:46
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Our Limited Perspectives |
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“Reality is far vaster than we can perceive”
Amen.
And to think we, humans, still pass judgement as if we’re all seeing, all
knowing. Charlie swears by his ‘beliefs’ as if they encompass all without
the least hint that he may be unable to come close to fathoming a small
fraction of even our own corner of the whole thing.
After a lot of contemplation on the matter I can only conclude god is so
much more than my being can comprehend. And still, god by its very
definition is all and everything regardless of my own limited perspective.
And as such we, I, are left with faith. And to tell you, Nev, even defining
what we have faith in places limits we’d be best to avoid. Leave it alone,
methinks. After all it’s so much easier to just have faith without qualifying
what one has faith in. Which in turn leave a lot of room for happiness.
In other words, it’s all one. Isn’t it?
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Responses:
[25037] |
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25037 |
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Date: March 12, 2024 at 14:18:56
From: chaskuchar@stcharlesmo, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Our Limited Perspectives |
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i hope your faith leads you to an a compassing love of
God, fagther, son and holy ghost
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Responses:
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