George Harrison's song, The Inner Light is reported to be based on a section from the Tao Te Ching. I like it. I discovered the Tao Te Ching many years ago, and it helped me along the road of awakening to the inner world of my heart: new ways of looking at my experiences of the world around me, and how those experiences are organized into thought patterns that influence and reflect my beliefs and understanding. Eventually, I started to recognize that there are two distinct faculties for understanding within me. One is the intellect, which is derived from language and based on symbols of things. The other is the heart, which is uncreated and resides within me as a gift of my creation. When I say “heart” here, I mean that part of me that connects me to that essence of everything that is, and to everything that remains uncreated. I discovered that my intellect could only take me so far, but would always be bound by the limitations inherent in its basis in symbols. The name of the thing is not the thing itself. To experience the thing itself, I need to set aside my intellect and use my heart to absorb the essence of the thing, which can only be felt with senses that are more subtle than my sensory organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin). I remember a poster that used to hang on the wall of the crisis center where I worked in the early seventies. It said, "The finger that points to the moon, is not the moon". Nor is the sound made by saying or listening to the word "moon", the thing itself. Can you feel the wonder of the moon's light as it bathes your yard at night? Can you ever really explain how it feels to you, the wonder it evokes, or what comprises its beauty? How do you know the moon? How do you know yourself? Can you find the heart within you? This is a wonderful question to explore. I hope you are inclined to investigate it for yourself.
From a FaceBook post 2105-11-21
2018/05/02 – Early morning - A note to a friend (mostly myself)
…you are off to California for a few days – seeking a change of scenery… you already know that the disquiet you seek to calm lies within you, and you will carry it with you. You said once that you seek Wisdom. What do you think Wisdom is?
You are in two pieces. You seek to be whole – complete – one (with yourself). Where will you find Wisdom? You seem to recognize it when you come across it. But, what is it? Do you see that it is the Wisdom inside you that enables you to recognize it in the world?
You are split into two pieces. One piece is at rest within you. The other piece looks outside of you for satisfaction. To become whole, each of us needs to turn the attention on the outside toward the inside. We cannot join the inside piece of ourselves with the outside piece of someone else. They won’t fit. That’s why someone else’s answers will not satisfy you. Only your answers will satisfy your questions. Religions arise when we try fit someone else’s answers to our own questions. The confusion comes from thinking that because someone uses the same words to formulate their question as we do to describe our own, that they are the same. We’re back to the problem I described in the earlier entry above: the “finger that points to the moon is not the moon”. We cannot drink the name for water. We need the liquid itself to quench our thirst. If everyone agrees with Socrates that we must know ourselves, it does not mean that we DO know ourselves.
If I say, “I know I have the answer inside me” it does not mean I have found it there, or, even know how to go within to seek it. The outside world is very big. The inside world is even bigger. The heart is the trustworthy guide in both worlds. Trust your heart in all things.
2019-02-23
