My wife and I enjoyed exploring Charlevoix several years ago and hope to return there in the not-too-distant future. What a beautiful landscape!
Showing 15 responses by stuartk
To clarify, I was expressing my doubt regarding what can be accomplished with verbal dialog when there is an absence of share experience. I was not asserting there exists no middle ground.
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I'm aware this is your mindset/perspective. We are actually quite similar in that neither one of us deigns to believe what we have not experienced.
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Is it not our stubborn certainty that we "know" how things are and are not that, more than anything else, gets in the way?
I’m drawn to writing poems... or, at least, to the process of learning to write them. It’s quite a challenging art! There are some poets whose work I admire for its clarity. Others may write in a way that "carries me away" through sound and rhythm. Their work may be less easily understood in terms of "story" but moves me on a level that does not require rational explanation. In such cases, we may be ushered into a "knowing" that does not depend upon rational thought. Instrumental music need not "explain itself" -- it has the power to affect our body and consciousness directly. Of course, it’s capacity to affect us may still be limited by our mental constructs. This is where I often run into problems because I’m so attached to/entrenched in, personal taste! ;o)
Neither do I. If it is true that we can experience something at many levels, then surely, the means of perceiving changes at different levels. And I'm not sure a "concept" is necessarily a prerequisite at every level. There can be "mental comprehension" on one level and "intuitive recognition" on another, no? Especially where spiritual growth is concerned, shifts in perception may not be recognized by the rational mind immediately. It's been my experience that a shift in awareness may occur at one level via a particular faculty that is not immediately recognized at another level associated with a different faculty. To use a metaphor, I may "see the grass is moving" for a while before it occurs to me that "a wind is blowing". |
As @mahgister asserts "... it can be much more..." The mode of perceiving the "more" could be described as mystical. Merry Christmas!
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Nor is it likely, in my opinion, that "person B" will toss their experience out the window simply because "person A" doesn't believe there is any reality to anything deemed mystical. It's probably both more productive and enjoyable for these two persons to talk about something else -- their favorite music, for example. ;o)
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I often find myself in agreement with @mahgister and am not shy about expressing it. I deleted my initial post because I wanted to say more on this thread topic but upon further consideration, opted not to, simply because is so subjective. If "person A" regards mysticism as frivolous ianity, at best and "person B" has had vivid experiences that fall within the realm of "the mystical", where is there space for dialog? I don’t see it. "person A" is liable to view "person B" as anything from overly-imaginative to deranged and there is nothing "person B" can do to change this. It’s for this reason that I thought it best not to comment further, despite the fact that this is a topic that greatly interests me. I think it best to leave it at that. |
Dylan has said he has "no idea" where his 60’s material came from. In the same interview, he implies they came from "somewhere else". Keith Richards, whom few would characterize as a "mystic", has said something to the effect that songs are "in the air" -- the idea being that the attentive/attuned artist "downloads" or "channels" them. if this is true, whatever/wherever the source of songs might be, it would appear to have a much larger capacity than any single human. Speaking of prolific composers, I wonder what Duke Ellington might've said on this topic |
I suppose, for those who otherwise have no awareness of a "higher self" , the act of connecting with it during creative expression may be interpreted as contacting something "outside" one's self. |