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Love & Understanding

Last post 08-10-2008, 5:37 PM by serengetiplains. 0 replies.
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  •  08-10-2008, 5:37 PM 71373

    Love & Understanding

    Here is a longish quote to consider from David Bohm:

    ... we have not perceived the whole truth unless we have also perceived that the truth must operate.  If we think it is the "Ego" or the "I" that operates, we are confused.  (For example, that we follow truth because we are "honest," so that the Ego makes a "choice" ---as if the Ego could with meaning and sense choose to be "dishonest" and thus follow a falsehood.)  In reality, it is the truth that operates, outside of the preferences of the Ego.  And indeed, the truth can even operate on the Ego, by perceiving and understanding its motivations deeply.  So what happens is that the basic principle of the individual ceases to be the Ego and is truth instead.

    Now, at present, this happens in a restricted domain, such as science or art.  But to see the basic principle of truth itself, it would be necessary for the individual to allow truth to operate unhindered in every field.  A basic part of the whole truth is to perceive the falsity of every operative idea that is really false.  This is extraordinarily difficult, as our motivations are confused and twisted in a very complicated way.  Many of our false ideas operate subliminally, or even subconsciously.  The problem is far more difficult to understand, than for example the theory of relativity, so that it requires a sustained and serious effort.  Yet many people expect to understand truth in five minutes.

    Another aspect of the whole truth must be the perception that there is no fundamental difference of "inner" and "outer."  One must see that human feelings, aches, desires, ambitions, fears, etc., are no more important in a fundamental sense than are those of other people, and that all of these "inner" workings are just "going on" in the same way that it rains and the sun shines.  This is also very hard, but if one doesn't see it, then one is confused, and can only perceive truth in its fragmentary form, and not as a totality.

    I have tried working at the latter problem, and after some work, I occasionally got a "glimpse" in which one felt that reality is in a different dimension (as two veiw of an object in a stereoscope fuse on to three dimensions).  In this new set of dimensions, one saw that the inner and the outer are basically one.  However, this glimpse lasted for only a moment.  I think that I saw why it didn't last.  In this state of unity of "inner" and "outer," the new truth starts to operate.  But this operation implies a totally different kind of action---an "openness" that is at variance with all the norms of common life.  It also makes one very vulnerable, as nothing can be kept for oneself or concealed.  To continue in such a state would require a kind of love that does not exist in me, and that probably exists in very few people.  So fundamentally, our understanding is limited by the absence of love.  This is what I indicated in an earlier letter.  Understanding without love is impossible, as is also love without understanding ...

    Pure love and understanding would have to exist together always.  There would be no motive for clouding the truth, and there would be natural attentiveness which would lead the person continually to understand afresh, if what he really felt was just love, and not something else besides.

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