Daily Quote, Saturday September 5, 2009.
Good morning everyone,
Looks like it will be nice!
Here is today's quote:
Is it possible to look at the problem comprehensively, wholly?
The more we think over a problem, the more we investigate, analyse, and discuss it, the more complex it becomes. So is it possible to look at the problem comprehensively, wholly? How is this possible? Because that, it seems to me, is our major difficulty. Our problems are being multiplied - there is imminent danger of war, there is every kind of disturbance in our relationships - and how can we understand all that comprehensively, as a whole? Obviously, it can be solved only when we can look at it as a whole - not in compartments, not divided.
When is that possible? Surely, it is only possible when the process of thinking - which has its source in the 'me', the self, in the background of tradition, of conditioning, of prejudice, of hope, of despair - has come to an end.
Can we understand this self, not by analysing, but by seeing the thing as it is, being aware of it as a fact and not as a theory - not seeking to dissolve the self in order to achieve a result but seeing the activity of the self, the 'me', constantly in action? Can we look at it, without any movement to destroy or to encourage? That is the problem, is it not? If, in each one of us, the centre of the 'me' is non-existent, with its desire for power, position, authority, continuance, self-preservation, surely our problems will come to an end.
The First and Last Freedom - 112
Here is my reflection.
That's simply it. Instead of preserving the "me" by trying to create something better - a result - can we just look at the activities of the "me" - which is all the things that sustains the "me" - which in turn is everything we do. To look is to be wholly impartial; to be impartial is to see the whole - the whole activity of the "me".
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In a letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul speaks to a community as many members, but one body. An interesting image of the whole, from which nothing/nobody can be separated. Self-observation is not merely about noticing what is going on inside my skin or inside my skull. Those can be attempts to separate myself from the whole. Being intrinsically part of the one body, self-observation is of all that happens, seemingly, between us, within us, without us, around us, and through us.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Paul is saying that the whole is more than the sum of the parts?
ReplyDeleteHm. I do think he's saying that it's false to believe the parts can be separate from the whole. That the parts each have need of each other and the whole does make the sum greater than the parts, yes.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't the whole merely something that the parts imagine, in order to maintain their separation?
ReplyDeleteIs to look at something wholly and see that I am the world and the world is me, the same as the whole being more than the sum of the parts?