Taking The Lid Off

I wrote in the post before last about an exercise I did where I looked at a tree while allowing the label (the word 'tree') to fall away in my mind. I was looking at it as a tiny child must do, without putting a name to it.

This was an idea I'd picked up on another blog - though I understand that it's also in Eckhart Tolle - and it seemed like a rather wacky idea, so I wasn't sure what, if anything, to expect from it.  But my experience was quite remarkable.

All at once, there seemed to be an energy in the tree which I hadn't noticed before.  It was as though the label had been holding it in check;  as though my preconception of the tree had been disguising its true nature.  Now, with the label gone, I became aware of the life force which had been there all along, hiding inside the tree I thought I had seen, the definable tree we know and may scarcely notice.

I remember hearing before about the idea of the labels we use putting limitations on things, but I'd never understood what this meant before. Now I see what it's all about. Removing the label in my mind had been like taking the lid off reality and allowing it into my life. I was no longer looking at the solid objects with which we think we surround ourselves but at the underlying energy of which they are comprised. I was catching a glimpse, at last, of the way things really are.

Your first reaction to this may be that it's all very airy fairy, like the next thing I'm going to ask you to do is to go out and hug a tree for Christmas or something, but the truth is that this has more to do with reality than the everyday world we perceive around us.

As I mentioned in a previous post, what we think of as solid matter is really mainly empty space. The particles which comprise atoms are extremely small, with a large proportion of empty space between them. And even these particles aren't really solid; they're more like waves of energy, which in their ceaseless commotion give everyday objects the appearance of solid matter, much as the dots on a CRT TV give the appearance of a picture. So when I talk about this strange experience of mine being 'a glimpse of the way things are', I may not be as loopy as I appear.

We think we understand the world, but such knowledge as we have is based on scientific reductionism, explaining things in terms of laws and principles which are only simplifications of the way things really are. We do not grasp reality. We only grasp a series of rules by which we believe it may operate. Perhaps the way we look at things in our everyday lives is similar. We define the objects we see for our convenience, but in doing so, are we reducing them to the lowest common denominator of our understanding? Are we closing our minds to what is really there?

It's funny - this blog is supposed to be practical and down to earth, but it keeps going all esoteric on me. I'd intended to talk about the practicalities of trying this 'unlabelling' exercise - so that's what I'll do next time...

Comments

[new illuminati]

Excellent! This is what it is to be a pre-literate native person who sees the world as a field of living spirits. Hats of to you (and Krishnamurti). Have you read Julian Jeynes' 'The Evolution of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind' ?
see also http://newilluminati.blog-city.com

[The Artist]

Calling over to wish you a wonderful Christmas, best wishes, The Artist

[carrie]

cool and interesting.

[Secret Simon]

Thanks for your comments. Welcome back to you all! That book you mention sounds really, really interesting, new illuminati. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Gosh wow. If that is true, then what does it *mean*? If anyone is interested to know what I'm talking about, try looking up "bicameralism (psychology)" on wikipedia.