May 23, 2011

Mysticism, God and the sea cucumber



It goes like this. 


 Once, many years ago, I was walking down the beach and came across a sea cucumber up on the sand. They are long squishy purplish animals and feel like burrata. Any evidence of sensory equipment - eyes, ears, mouth etc are pretty much absent.


Instead of tossing this rogue adventurer back into the sea directly I held it and walked down the beach  considering it's aspects and thinking about...well...'us'. 


 There we were - two animals together cruising down the beach on an adventure, then it dawned on me: our experiences of this moment were most likely very very different.


It was true - we were both there, both moving parallel to the ocean and  together - it was REALLY happening, but how it was being PERCEIVED by each of us had to be radically different.


And there it is...me, you, the universe and everything. God and magic all wrapped up in that difference in our biology, the gap in perception, our lack of understanding...and the subsequent desire to do so, to know, to understand the other.





I think it's entirely possible that many things happen to us (put yourself in the position of the sea cucumber) that we don't have the senses to fully perceive, or that we partially get but seem like magic or acts of God because we lac sonar and echo location and probably a zillion other things like that. Is it so hard to imagine that we are missing lots of sensors that other creatures have and subsequently that there are things in the 'natural' world that in part elude us? 


 I believe that everyone needs different things to get them through this life. I do not personally believe in the great sea cucumber in the sky, or aggressively sliming everyone with ones own righteous rhetoric (wait...what am  I doing?). Where does this arrogance come from? 


 I believe in the importance of an exchange. I believe that if there is a place that's more enlightened that we can aspire to be it will be found in a life long engagement, an ongoing conversation and exchange with our fellow human beings. Maybe 'God' is our differences and heaven the ongoing exchange aimed at understanding them. 

I don't know...it's just a theory. I might think completely differently about this tomorrow.



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