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The way of thinking of our current era has given emphasis to self-involvement, self importance. For this reason we have given obeisance to religious and political leaders and credence to their human-based ideologies and causes. My inclination is to chuckle instead. It is not that the individual lacks value, but that the value is transcendent. The individual's greatness is the greatness of the undying universe. Each human expresses that greatness in the range of his uniqueness and the breadth of humanity's diversity. The essential is not mortal. We owe no allegiance to ideas, leaders, nations, causes, priests, religions or their gods. Yet we cannot do other than remain loyal to our essence, the consciousness expressed through us, so uniquely and diversely. In living, as well as in dying we give testimony to the unceasing unfoldment of the divine, like the endless back and forward movement of waves on the shore. It is due to the conviction of our own self-importance that we so easily fall under the spell of leaders and are willing to lay down our lives to fulfill their dreams. Let the foolish give credence to the foolish. We have better things to do with our time; to lay in the warm sun listening to grass hoppers, or watching ants carry grains of corn to their nests are more worthy pursuits than participating in building empires or defending them. If we are unable to serve our essential nature, in a generosity of spirit, what is the purpose of accruing time, money or goods? The fulfillment of such service (of the essential) is the dissolution of all consideration of I and mine. We take part in the manifestation, the upheaval, the outpouring of all life. We own this process; this greatness is our greatness. And whether the name and form by which we are known dies today or lives another hundred years is rather trivial. Life itself is trivial if we think only of ourselves, or serve surrogates for the true essential greatness at the heart of our lives.

Source: http://www.vikshepa.com/largeness/

Thanks Manuel for your comment. All of my philosophical texts are likely to be both confusing and confused; full of contradictions and imperfections.

I don't suggest to believe in anything, though there is no harm in positing an "anima mundi" or something else, for a time, if it can be helpful to our quest for truth.

Regarding the acceptance as truth of that which is reported by the senses, I think throughout history various thinkers have shown that there are some problems with that. When I look out of the window here, in Virginia, there is the soft, steady rain on winter-bare trees, the distant squabbling of wild geese from the lakeshore... and all seems to be a harmony. Yet the intellect informs us that we are living in a koyaanisqatsi world that is rapidly falling into a deep disharmony.

There is no beauty in perceived objects. The apprehension of beauty is a matter for the soul, though this is a very obscure and imprecise word. The existence of a soul cannot be proved through any scientific process as far as I know.

Again, when I open the blinds in the morning and gaze out on the gentle scene, there is the apprehension of rapturous harmony. Despite what we know, this harmony is real. We apprehend it because in this moment, the mind is quiet and the I is absent. For an instant, there is direct experience. There is no subject, perceiving objects. The sense of a solid me that is built from a lifetime of experiences is not there. The next moment, the I will indeed reassert its presence as perceiver and accumulator of our experiences, and add this apprehension of beauty to its store of memories. It may add a commentary and point out that the perceived harmony is false: The steady rain, which has passed an all time annual record in this area, is probably the result of climate change caused by human intervention.

The I, as an entity in separation from a world of objects is a false usurper of direct experience. The sense of beauty and harmony is one of underlying unity. Only in the poor memory of beauty is the I present. Inquiry into the nature of the I, or sustained contemplation in silence, extenuates and weakens the belief in its substantiality. It's a stack of cards constructed on unstable foundations.

If the separative I proves to be insubstantial, so does the "we". The reality of the other depends similarly on the existence of an underlying unitary consciousness or undifferentiated being that expresses itself variously, in a multitude of apparent forms. This is not to say that the world is an illusion, but only that the way in which we perceive it is illusory, when we fail to apprehend the underlying unity. It is due to this fallacy of perception that our intervention in the world, despite our fine motives and sensibilities, is causing such deep disturbance and destroying everything we hold dear. Without paying attention to who we really are, our own nature, we cannot properly comprehend the nature of the other. Instead, we will live in competition with others, eeking out an increasingly tenuous sustenance from diminishing resources. Human beings are in the process of reaching the limits of existence in their current state of their consciousness, as expressed in separative egoism. We can now very plainly see where it leads. Basically, we will either change or self-destruct, taking a good part of the biosphere with us.

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