The mindless cosmos and inherent meaning

Since the so called "enlightenment" many seem to have become accustomed to a mode of thought that sees external reality - our universe - as some sort of mindless backdrop. In itself it has no meaning. We, as human beings, finding ourselves the seekers of meaning, then assume that we simply project our meanings upon an outside world that is essentially meaningless in and of itself.

This assumption has been questioned by many. The alternative to it has been ascertained by those such as Carl Jung. In speaking of Jung's thought another has said:-

(Jung implies) that meaning is not just subjectively projected onto a meaningless external reality but can be an inherent feature discoverable in, or creatively emergent from, the one reality that we also are.

The "that we also are" takes us back to our world's Faith Traditions.

That is all for now.

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SW-User

Just to finish for now, here is Thomas Merton again, offering another idea of "Being" apart from the modern Cartesian "self" which many have inherited and assumed to be sacrosanct.

Meanwhile, let us remind ourselves that another, metaphysical, consciousness is still available to modern man. It starts not from the thinking and self-aware subject but from Being, ontologically seen to be beyond and prior to the subject-object division. Underlying the subjective experience of the individual self there is an immediate experience of Being....... It has in it none of the split and alienation that occurs when the subject becomes aware of itself as a quasi-object. The consciousness of Being (whether considered positively or negatively and apophatically as in Buddhism) is an immediate experience that goes beyond reflexive awareness.........Posterior to this immediate experience of a ground which transcends experience, emerges the subject with its self-awareness.

(The post- enlightenment) self-aware subject is not final or absolute; it is a provisional self-construction which exists, for practical purposes, only in a sphere of relativity. Its existence has meaning in so far as it does not become fixated or centered upon itself as ultimate, learns to function not as its own center but “from God” and “for others.".

In brief (ah! sighs of relief......😀) this form of consciousness assumes a totally different kind of self-awareness from that of the Cartesian thinking-self which is its own justification and its own center. Here the individual is aware of himself as a self-to-be-dissolved in self-giving, in love, in “letting-go,” in ecstasy, in God—there are many ways of phrasing it. The self is not its own center and does not orbit around itself; it is centered on God, the one center of all, which is “everywhere and nowhere,” in whom all are encountered, from whom all proceed. Thus from the very start this consciousness is disposed to encounter “the other” with whom it is already united anyway “in God.” The metaphysical intuition of Being is an intuition of a ground of openness, indeed of a kind of ontological openness and an infinite generosity which communicates itself to everything that is. “The good is diffusive of itself,” or “God is love.”

(From an essay in "Zen and the Birds of Appetite", available from all good bookstores........)

Mindful · 56-60, F

@SW-User 💛💛💙💛