Apparently, we are strangers to love and compassion, which is a deep sense of the wholeness of existence encompassing also intelligence and beauty; and yet at the same time we seem to be very familiar with a host of personal feelings and emotions. Can we look a little at the relationship between these two fields of existence and perhaps discover in the looking something about the truth and falseness of each?
If all manifestation exists only as a predicate of āthe Oneā or a āWholeness,ā then that realization would cancel the possibility of love itself. Perhaps wholeness, paradoxically, is incomplete and love is what exceeds even the unity of One.
Does any of this matter, though, except to thought?
If getting real is important then try changing the āweā to āIā. For example the OP will read like this - āApparently, I am a stranger to love and compassion, which is a deep sense of the wholeness of existence encompassing also intelligence and beauty; and yet at the same time I seem to be very familiar with a host of personal feelings and emotionsā
Then, if trickery isnāt the name of the game, and solicitation the goal, then you ought to start by defining the meaning of the words, " love, compassion, wholeness of existence, intelligence, and beauty", first in general and then how you understand them. After clarifying the meanings of these words and how you are using them, you will then need to clarify this proclaimed ārelationshipā while explaining the nature of said āfields of existenceā taking into account the suggested distinction.
Or, you can simply ignore my post and continue with your vague and deceptive post, which doesnāt illustrate much except an arbitrary use of catchy phrases with no particular meaning.
It is not up to me to define any of the words we are using here; that is not my place. Weāll do it together, if we are so inclined, which may take a little time and patience. Arenāt you a stranger to love and compassion? Or have you the whole package neatly wrapped?
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This is our language; it is not mine or yours. So together weāll have to find out whatever meaning these words have. Your definition of love may be different from mine. And even if we agree on an identical definition of love down to the very finest details, is the definition of love ever going to be the thing itself?
So we are strangers to it, all of us, no exceptions. It is only then that we are free to discover the truth about it. Or we can continue to argue about words and their usage.
Please elaborateā¦
Well put. This should remain.
Well, then you should have no problems changing your pronouns from āweā to āIā not only in your latest thread and i quoteā
āIt boggles the mind to ponder this question because challenge and response is all we (I) know, and weāre (I am) so inept at responding to challenge that we (I) donāt even know how inept we (I) are (am). We (I) donāt always know when weāre ( I am) being challenged or what the challenge is. We (I) smugly assume weāre (I am) doing all right when, in fact, we (i) are (am) stumbling and bumbling, sputtering and babbling, cluelessly (but confidently) proceeding with our (my) make-believe lives until we ( I will) expire.ā
I have done the corrections on the above quote on your behalf. I am guessing you will go ahead and correct all your threads and posts as well as make sure you wonāt commit these mistakes in future?
No. The word āloveā is not my word or your word; it has been handed down to us over generations, both carelessly and carefully. It is our job to work out what it means.
@United78 is not around now in this forum - so Iām Sorry he canāt reply for your post as of now.
Thanks
Iām sure heāll come back in another form.
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Because love cannot be merely just an encounter with what is both familiar and forgotten (such as what is spoken of in the non-dual tradition (monism/wholeness) or in the divine Hindu game of Leela, wherein the absolute hides itself from itself in order to be rediscovered again and again. If it were so, then eventual discovery of the familiar (āwhen I look into your eyes, Iām homeā) would indicate the death of love and the birth of the sentimental and not only is sentiment not love, it also breeds contempt. But in order for love to find me, then I must also find it as that which stands out and is set apart from all expectations and conditions. This is what calls me to attend. That is attention. Attention is what calls me without recourse to decline (choiceless). As in, I cannot refuse your advances; be they welcome or unwanted.
So, love is not simply a process where like finds like again as when my phenomenal subjective experience realizes its illusion and thus is restored to its rightful place back once again within the bosom of the whole from whence it sprang. Nor is it a restoration to what was most familiar. But love, (as in love of God) calls us to attend. And what calls us to attend must exceed all expectations including rediscovery in order to hold our gaze captive. Otherwise, weād never hear it. It would be just like any other noise.
What do you think K is indicating when he writes āsuddenly the Beloved was with us,ā or āonly then the Other is thereā?
Beyond fragmentation, and even beyond the restored world mind, lies the Other. The world mind is not an end point. Nor is it a cosmic emptiness or void. It is more like a staging ground upon we which we are set to receive that which is more, that which is unfinished and inexhaustible.
Might there be a similarity in the approach to using language here, to the political and economic methodology of our time, in which profit is privatised, but debt socialised? That is, I socialise (we) when it is to my advantage to do so, and likewise privatise (you) to hand an other fault, or shortcoming, as a useful defence or deflection? In this way I can be inconsistent in my handling of things but always right in my own eyes which others may pick up on. Is this not all part of observing the subtle movement of myself both conscious and unconscious. I can start any thread I like, using any subject or any terminology, but if my approach is rigidly the same from the outset, it will end in the same way each time.
The point I am making here is, if our language is a common property, and our consciousness is too, that is my consciousness is the consciousness of mankind, then there is no true private in that sense. So if within the body politic, which the forum can be conceived to be, there is fractiousness, which arises in relationship to myself continually, I can take the view that this fractiousness belongs to the one exhibiting it, and for which they are responsible, which they are, but I can also take the overview, that I have a responsibility for it too, even when I may be able to claim I am technically correct, or I am acting within a certain remit. That is I am not blameless in that sense, and I am not an innocent party, I am an aspect of it too, even if I am unconscious of it in myself, and so I have a responsibility to look at all this, as part of understanding myself in the round.
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I think you are being too clever about it.
I take it you donāt want to address the point of sharing responsibility for the fractiousness evident in threads you start?
I am happy to address any question. Go for it.
Love ācalls us to attendā because it exceeds āall expectationsā. Love is rapt attention?
I stand correctedā¦
The only purpose to any of this as an activity is to learn about myself, and that requires vulnerability, but when I do not actually want that to happen, then this all becomes rather pointless do you not think?
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