Sunday, April 28, 2024
6:15 a.m. So, is it practical to ask how the world works? In effect, why we are here?
In what way would it be considered practical not to ask what it all means? Plenty of people live their lives without considering the question, or, if they do consider it, they quickly assume the answer can’t be known and don’t pursue the question. They get along just fine. Or, people don’t consider the question because they don’t realize there is any question: Their surroundings give them an answer and they do not question it. How they are raised is how they remain.
For any of these people, the question does not arise, so pursuing it is not an issue. But if a great question-mark does fill your horizon, would it be practical to assume that it is there for no reason? If it matters to you, it is likely to matter a lot. Doesn’t it make sense to assume that something that you feel matters, does matter, even if you don’t immediately know why?
And of course there is a third, intermediate, position. It comes to matter or ceases to matter. This intermediate position is a variable state, and is the state these sessions my help.
So, three possible conditions:
- It matters to you, and you are going to pursue it if possible.
- You begin your life concerned with other things, but your life brings the question into focus. Or, you begin by questioning and leave off when you can’t find a way to satisfactorily answers.
- It doesn’t matter to you. You consider it a dead issue, or a settled one, or one that never arises.
Those in the third position have no need of answers, and even if you could rouse them to an awareness of the importance of knowing why you are living, to unsettle them might do more harm than good, like the African “mission boys” of the colonial era, who were widely considered to be worth little either to their own people or to the conquerors’ society. A merely intellectual conversion may leave a severely divided person, not really able to cope or to fit in.
(Bear in mind, that doesn’t mean this is a detour for that individual soul. You can’t know the ultimate effects of any life experience, if only because there is not final “ultimate.” So we don’t say don’t disturb people in this position, we say merely that they aren’t the ones who will profit from a new way of seeing things.)
When we say “practical,” we are confining our field of inquiry to this life, this time, not some theoretical other life. To look at anything beyond the life you live now would be to sneak an answer into the question, like people trying to prove by logic that God does or does not exist. We’d rather not do that.
If the question matters to you, it matters for a reason, and we would say it ought to be pursued, just as you would pursue anything else in your life that mattered to you. To you. That’s the beginning point. Does the question matter to you? If it did not, why would you bother about it? But if it does matter, how could it be considered practical to not pursue a question that poses itself to you whether or not you want it to? We regard it as a basic ground-rule: If it matters to you, take it seriously. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter, just because you may not see immediately how to pursue the question.
For, this is the other half of the question about practicality: Can you pursue the question effectively? Can you really know anything if you put in the time and effort? And we’d say the answer is yes, but the process and result are not what you would probably expect. You won’t come to logical proof. You won’t stack evidence higher and higher until you are forced to a conclusion. You won’t discover a mathematics that proves anything. This isn’t that kind of question.
So then, what can you expect?
We’ll tell you. You will find yourself knowing more by a process of recognition than of logic or compiling data, certainly not by being persuaded by appeal to authority.
You already know. We are here merely to clarify what you know and don’t necessarily recognize that you know.
Does that sound circular? In terms of logic, no doubt it does. But in practice, not only does it work, but it is the only process that does work. You don’t get persuaded; you don’t grab some belief arbitrarily; you don’t throw up your hands and say, “It can’t be known.” In practice, what happens is that you recognize the truth, and the only learning that takes place is the association of ideas and conclusions and limitations and relationships that may not have occurred to you in the absence of conscious recognition.
We say this is the only learning that takes place. True, but that’s a big “only.”
We will point you to the truth, and then it is up to you. As we said earlier, everyone’s truth is going to be different, with overlaps. This is not about creating a movement, still less about creating a religion. It is about saving you time and energy in orienting yourself.
Here is an implication that some will shy from: Everyone’s particular subset of the truth is important. Everyone’s particular nuanced result fills an ecological niche that otherwise cannot be filled. Do not undervalue your participation in the great task. Do not hesitate to set your own understanding against that of the entire world. How else is any refinement of understanding ever accomplished? And how do you know but that your individual piece – which by nature must be unique – may be the very piece needed by another? You may consider this to be one meaning of Jesus saying that the discarded or disregarded stone becomes the keystone that holds up the arch. Do not assume there is only one discarded stone per universe. It happens all the time. You might take a careful look at your own stone, as it reveals itself.
And this will do for the moment.
And next time? Can you give us a headline?
Don’t press. Take it as it comes. As Seth says, it will be in perfect order. And if you nevertheless wish to reorder what comes, who is to stop you?
Okay. Our thanks as always.