Autobiography - Part 7 (What is REAL?)

NOTE: I will indicate the new inclusions (which may also be current thoughts in italics and blue to differentiate this writing from its earlier incarnation. Those in italics and green are comments made by my grading professor. Those in italics and purple are comments made by my Humanities professor whom I shared this paper with.)

I think this shouldn't be titled as Autobiography. Only Part 1 seemed to have been touching on that. The rest are (were) more about how I see the world or my beliefs. I suppose – it speaks more of how my present day views/perceptions/beliefs came to be. I will have to consider changing the title ..

But one will then ask, “What is this all about? What does it mean to be unreal? Who do we perceive things around us ‘wrongly’? Well, we learn that the philosopher Abraham Heschel said that “each life harbours a mystery.” Each one of us holds a mystery in our lives and yet all our mysteries put together is only a fraction of the whole MYSTERY which is the SOURCE [or God, as some may term] (“God / SOURCE is the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts”. – Babcock) And just as we hold a mystery, so too do we possess individually our very own purpose or duty [dharma]. Thus, I think, it would be incorrect to say that our perception is wrong. [incomplete perhaps would be more accurate.] Let us examine our second diagram [below]:

[There is no contradiction or conflict here with Interpretive Sociology or its philosophical background. What Interpretive Sociology, especially the “branch” called Symbolic Interactionism, does is look at and study how people communicate about their different realities, how they negotiate a common understanding about them and about such things as God and REALITY.]

Diagram 2

Each of our World is a ‘pattern.’ But beyond this pattern, encompassing all is a greater ‘pattern,’ a ‘divine plan’ …thus Pirsig [my professor didn’t know I had apparently already read the book he was recommending to me in his earlier comment] described it (the divine ‘pattern) as larger than his son and himself (Robert Pirsig). Then Langness and Frank talks about a template which is provided by a “prior structure of personal identity” (p. 109) or as C.G. Jung calls it “a preconscious knowledge” (Babcock, p.1) – all these leading us back to the idea of being an extended-being of a greater being termed earlier, and in this paper, as the SOURCE. Again we have returned to the SOURCE. We will try to avoid being caught up in that and return to the question of why the individual possess an incomplete perception of REALITY. In answer to that I return to my earlier statement of each individual having a purpose. Our very purpose in life is to unravel the mystery of the Self or of Life.

Now, what ‘self’ am I referring to at the present? We will deal first with the Self = World (our own) = Reality; after all our World is our Life. Turning back to the quotes made earlier (taken from Schumacher’s book) and by various wise men of old, we find the universal and timeless advice of seeking one’s Self, of journeying into the ‘within.’ I still have not answered the question? Well, [if you will] examine what I wrote in page 12 of this paper: [this would be in Part 5]

Yet the understanding of the without is an attempt to understand the within. That accounts for our incomplete perception. As we attempt to understand ourselves, (perhaps unconsciously) we inadvertently project ourselves into others. [There is no doubt that this psychological phenomenon occurs. We also “project” onto our society in an analogous way, that is we are a “part” of and creator of our own society through our actions with others. In our attempts to understand our society it is also useful to look “within” our own consciousness and within our own relationships.] 

We see them as we want to, and often not as they really are. We even resent in them what we hate in ourselves. Thus we detest the faults we see in others (faults which may or may not really exist in them) for the very same faults we have ourselves but consciously are unwilling to acknowledge or recognise. I realize my answer is [may be] imprecise and perhaps very unclear but that is precisely the point .. for were I able to define and answer precisely, then I would have succeeded in unravelling the total MYSTERY. Yet, that for me, and for many others, is impossible while we are still hindered by our body or physical reality [more precisely – while we still hold on to the physical world as if this is the only Reality].

To be continued ….

Peace to all,
Syl