The inspiration behind this blog entry is a very interesting channel I found on youtube.
The channel is ACIM esstentials featuring Auntie Patricia (Patricia Robinett)
Auntie Patricia on 'Meaning versus Meaninglessness', ACIM Lesson 004.
People all through the ages have been searching for the 'meaning of life'.
I don't think this 'meaning' has been found. Because I'm not sure there exists any 'absolute meaning' in the realm of the mind.
The 'meaning of life' cannot be some complicated network of mental concepts.
The intellectual route in the search for 'meaning' is not wrong, but will eventually take one to the point where all 'meaning' will dissolve...into nothing...
I believe that the moment meaninglessness is seen clearly.
Is the moment in which MEANING will show itself.
Clearly.
| The ACIM route into the realm of true meaning, via the dissolution of the 'meaningless meaning' we attribute to things and events: 1. Nothing I see means anything. 2. I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me. 3. My thoughts do not mean anything. 4. My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world. |
| I currently believe, that the absolute, self evident meaning, when it is finally seen clearly, will be accompanied by the dissolution of the mind, signifying a total withdrawal from worldly affairs. And the mind that can see to an extent, the meaninglessness that exists, can see, to an extent, the absolute, self evident meaning of it all. |
Digging deeper into the ACIM perspective:
A. If thoughts do not have any meaning, it means that INTERPRETATIONS that thoughts give to situations rising in the surroundings are absurd and meaningless.
Further...memories are also thoughts. When a memory comes, it comes as a thought.
If statement A. is true, it follows that mental movies that pretend to be memories are not really memories, but are pretending to be memories. And their content is also the same - absurd and meaningless. And this takes me to my post on CARL JUNG's commentary on 'Time'.
To people who subscribe to the Advaita Vedantic perspective of MAYA, the following statement will ring true:
| Meaningless thoughts from the void are projecting or generating the illusion of a meaningless world that exists only to the extent it is observed. |
Quote by Ramesh Balsekar:
In the meditation for November 27 in A Net of Jewels (1996), Ramesh Balsekar says,
"Breathing goes on by itself while the deluded individual thinks it is he who is breathing. Thoughts come from outside, arising spontaneously through intervals of mental vacuum, and he thinks it is he who is thinking. The thoughts get transformed involuntarily into action, and he thinks it is he who is acting. All the while, he is doing nothing but to misconstrue the actions of the Totality as his own action."
Update 2011:
Stepping beyond conclusions & intellectual concepts, judgments, straight into the realm of pure faith...this song is very profound christian mysticism...
2 comments:
memories are thoughts, yes, agreed.
my memory? no such thing.
my thoughts? my air? my water?
do thoughts come to us or do we make them? they come to us just as water falls from the sky, don't they? then how can we own them? pretending to own thoughts is authorship...:)
nice post,vikram.
any presumption of what could happen when meaninglessness is clearly perceived is, after all, a presumption, isn't it?
Hi Manjushree,
I edited my words to fit the advaita vedanta perspective correctly. (No ownership of thoughts..)
But I can't change the ACIM quote...
_______________________
Meaninglessness cannot be clearly perceived until MEANING is clearly perceived. Both will reveal themselves simultaneously. This is my belief.
If I give you a page of mathematics, and you dont know that math, you cant tell which part of it is wrong and which is right.
But the second you see the wrong IN ITS TOTALITY -- the rest is all correct. By definition.
The second you see the right, you also see the wrong.
Simultaneous. In my view.
Post a Comment