Mysterious and Wonderful

    We're indoctrinated with the dogma that if science can't prove something then it doesn't & can't possibly exist, and you should run the other way! This is NOT real science BUT a belief system called scientism - the secular pseudo-religion that holds that if science can't understand & control everything yet, very soon it will, and that outside of science, nothing exists except wishful thinking & delusion. 

    Iain McGilchrist MD - retired Oxford professor of literature, psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher & author - in an excellent interview says:
     “First of all I’m a process philosopher ... so I believe that everything is in process. So there is no one truth that is ‘the Truth’ sitting there waiting for us to find it. There is only a pathway towards what is truer. ... I suggest that there are 4 important paths that we should be thinking of towards truth. And ... for all but one of them (science), the right hemisphere is the better one to rely on. But what are those four paths? 
    I think that they’re the paths of science, of reason, of intuition and of imagination. And we live in a world in which intuition & imagination have been systematically attacked & devalued. And I’d almost say there’s a sort of war of those who, in my view, are rather narrowly hypnotized by the undoubted importance & success of science & reason, into believing that that is all that will help us.  
    Science in particular cannot do that because science entirely starts out from certain beliefs or positions. Any methodology must do that. And part of its methodology is it will not consider values and it will not consider purpose. And that’s perfectly respectable, and it’s paid certain dividends. The only thing science can’t do at the end of this process is solemnly announce that it has found there are no purposes & there are no values. Of course it can’t say that because it’s left those out of its whole purview. 
    And I love this remark by C.S. Lewis, that it’s rather like a policeman stopping all the traffic in the street, and then solemnly writing in his notebook that 'the silence in this street is very suspicious.' So they can’t talk to us about that. And people used to think that they could.  
    Biologists used to tie themselves in knots to say things like, the turtle comes on shore and lays its eggs, not the turtle comes on shore to lay its eggs. I think they got over that phase now and have decided that it’s perfectly okay to accept that the whole of biology is pregnant with purpose. You only have to do what as a child I did - look at pond water under a microscope, to see that there are all sorts of organisms acting in a very purposeful way. 
    The scientific method takes things apart and tries to find what they’re made of, make them explicit and break them up into pieces. Unfortunately, there are certain things that the value of them is only present when they are a whole, and is only present implicitly. So science is impotent to give us a handle on all the things that really matter ...
    In ancient Greece there were two words for truth. One was logos, which we hear about, but the other was ‘mythos’ or ‘muthos.’ And of logos & muthos, muthos was much the greater. So muthos had the role of being able to convey the really big truths, the important truths about the Cosmos, humanity, life. 
    Logos was a sort of logic chopping thing that was fine as far as it went, but it was the sort of thing that you would find in a court of law where two people were disputing about a sum of money. There it had its use, but it didn’t have the capacity to tell us about the big things. ... unfortunately the message we got from Plato, and possibly even more from Aristotle, is that ‘a thing and its opposite can never be true’ – which is blatantly a lie, and is known to all wisdom traditions. Metaphors are not lies, myths are not lies, and values are not made up by us. I mean individual value judgments may well be, but the existence of goodness, beauty and truth for example, are not something we made up. 
    Even Darwin beautifully in his work is constantly asking, ‘Okay, beauty can be used for natural selection, but what is beauty? Where does it come from? Why do birds find certain things beautiful in the first place, in order for that to be useful, to tag onto something?’ 
    I wish people had that breadth that the great scientists of the past used to have – an understanding of the importance of philosophy and of the imagination. I’m absolutely happy with saying there are certain realms, and above all there are those of whatever you like to call it – the Divine, the Spiritual, which most people, 95% of people say exists beyond what science and reason can tell us. Only about 10% of people in this country belong to a religion, but 90% of people, if asked, ‘Do you think there’s more to existence than is summed up by science and reason?’ - they say yes. I think it’s a very deep sense we have, and that has to be something that mythology, poetry, the great stories, indeed music for me, tells me, and there’s nothing that’s negative or diminished about that. Indeed those are the royal roads to truth.” Iain McGilchrist MD
    The Sacred Power of Story - Marc Gafni & Iain McGilchrist moderated by Zak Stein. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf1jhsL3dvc

 

    David Whyte - well-known, published poet - had this to say in a recent interview:
    “Poetry was always something that I felt was a secret code to life. 
    I don’t know if you remember when you were a child, listening to the adult world? You’d often feel, ‘These people are actually crazy. These people are insane. They’ve lost the primary perspectives of life and their priorities are all upside down. I felt like this all the time as a child.
    So I actually felt that becoming an adult was a form of amnesia, forgetting the primary experience and vision that a child had. Now, I’m not saying a child’s perfect. You need a mature adult body to hold that vision. But when I started to read proper adult poetry - not the kind of poetry given to younger people - I said, ‘Oh my God, here are adults who have kept the visions and acuity of childhood alive into adulthood.’ ” 
    Inside the Mind of a Master Writer — David Whyte https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_ofS9aM24&t=610s 

     From early childhood, I was aware that ordinary thinking was only part of the my approach to understanding this strange, complex, challenging life. I was forced to rely on all of my intelligences when at age 8, we moved from Hungary to Ireland, and neither my parents nor I could speak or understand a single word of English. Two years later, we moved to Quebec city, and again initially, neither my parents nor I could speak or understand a word of French.  
    Young children learn surprisingly quickly when immersed in an entirely new language, probably in large part because all of their intelligences are still open & working. As Iain McGilchrist said, their intuition & imagination (and other intelligences) had not yet been attacked & extinguished.

    Gerald May MD - was a psychiatrist for twenty-five years, primarily treating addictions, then devoted his time to teaching contemplative theology and psychology at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation - wrote this in one of his excellent books:    
    “The dark night of the soul is a profoundly good thing. It is an ongoing spiritual process in which we are liberated from attachments & compulsions and empowered to live & love more freely. Sometimes this letting go of old ways is painful, occasionally even devastating. But this is not why the night is called ‘dark.’ The darkness of the night implies nothing sinister, only that the liberation takes place in hidden ways, beneath our knowledge & understanding. It happens mysteriously, in secret, and beyond our conscious control. For that reason it can be disturbing or even scary, but in the end it always works to our benefit.
    More than anything, I think the dark night of the soul gives meaning to life. It is a meaning given in not knowing, as Dag Hammarskjöld tried to describe in one of his final writings:
    ‘I don’t know Who – or what – put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.’
    The meaning revealed in the dark night is beyond understanding. As with Hammarskjöld, one cannot fully comprehend it. But one is left with an ever deepening certainty that the meaning is there, that life is much more than coping & adjustment. Mysterious as it may be, there is something wonderful at the heart of our existence, and it is about nothing other than love: love of God, love for one another, love for creation, love for life itself.”
    Gerald G. May MD. “The Dark Night of the Soul. A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth.” HarperOne, 2005.


    When Robert Thurman, after 60 years of studying & practicing Tibetan Buddhism was asked what he considered was a fulfilled life, he responded:
    “Living a fulfilled life is living happily, and hopefully, with trust in the good, in the power of the good - at whatever stage you’re able to understand it – but with faith in the power of the good, however you define it. Therefore, not giving in to fear of the bad overwhelming the good. 
    Piers Morgan asked the Dalai Lama in an interview ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted to ask you, What is the meaning of life?'
    The Dalai Lama said, 'The meaning of life is happiness, joyfulness. Yes. To reason, the future is a mystery – how it’s going to be. So in the present, you have hope that there will be something better. 
    And that hope, in the present, makes you happy. And then you carry on. 
    If you admit despair, then it’s all terrible. So that’s the meaning of life.' 
    So you trust that someone - you, or Buddha, or Jesus - can make things better in the future. Buddha and Jesus tell you that you have to chip in.’”  
    Robert Thurman https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+lost+years+of+jesus+youtube#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0d231144,vid:8EQG94rZ3_g,st:0 

“In ancient times, various holistic sciences 
were developed by highly evolved beings 
to enable their own evolution and that of others. 
These subtle arts were created 
through the linking of individual minds 
with the universal mind. 
They are still taught by traditional teachers 
to those who display virtue and desire to assist others. 
Students who seek out and study these teachings 
further the evolution of humankind 
as well as their own spiritual unfolding. 
The student who ignores them 
hinders the development of all beings.”

Lao Tzu

 

Bonnie Baker "Field" harvestgallery.ca