There are no shortcuts to experiencing Mystery.
Sometimes I trawl the Internet, looking for others who write about the same kinds of things as me. Or I talk to different people, hoping that I will find others of like mind. I look for others who access the Mystery, who might enrich my life thus.
And probably they are out there. Possibly some of them might even blog. But the inherent problem with these approaches is simply that they (reading, talking) are based in language. They are words, whether written or spoken; and words are symbols for the reality, not the reality itself. And the very essence of Mystery is that it lies somewhere beyond the range of representation. It is both simpler and more complex than that, because it’s just direct experience.
We are so awash in symbolic thought that we can get entirely trapped in it. Our minds are powerful things. What religion do we respond to? Which football team do we support? All of our choices, our identifications, are closely aligned with whatever symbols ring true for us, what stories speak best to our beings. Even something as serious as our political stage is nothing more than seeing whose story you believe in the most.
And this isn’t to say that stories are untrue. They’re true insofar as they resonate and carry us forward on our path.
But they’re not enough. But we are so trapped in this world of stories and symbols that many of us begin to think that there’s even no such thing as ultimate Truth. Well, there is. It’s just not necessarily translatable into English.
Access to Truth can only be accomplished through practice that leads through direct experience and heart-to-heart transmission.
This is what is lacking, and becomes ever more lacking the more our society embraces — and becomes entrenched in — increasingly arcane, symbolic levels of communication.
IMHO.
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Ah yes…words. An expression with which I have a love/hate relationship.
Well said! I couldn’t agree more.
This is also one of the reasons I find musical expression is so valuable. If we can avoid some of the constructs you point out, artistic expression can provide an alternate, non-linguistic means for exploring and experiencing Mystery.
[...] October 26th, 2007 in uncategorized David’s recent musings at The Edge of Grace got me thinking about the way we transmit and share information and experiences–as well as [...]
Wish that those musical, artistic, and ritual forms that spoke to those dimensions were more available and accessible …