It seems like, even when life is going well, we cannot experience it at the best and highest level "on demand".
We sometimes experience the "romance" of this-life, a magical moment, or even magical hours and days; but this state does not become continuous - nor can we have this magic whenever we want it, nor even when we may feel we most need it.
There are always mundane periods, and these may be normal; there is of course suffering, illness, ageing, and the prospect of death all around and about. But even when we are not immediately affected by such things, life may be experienced as mundane; that is dull, everyday, trivial, niggling... just stuff that happens.
And sometimes, oft-times, we cannot snap ourselves out of this, nor can we do anything that genuinely works in attaining that magical and romantic state we may desire or even crave.
The question is whether this inability of ours is something that might in principle be overcome. The question is whether or not it is theoretically possible that "life at its best" could become everyday life? Whether and/or when we feel most trapped in everyday life, or most in need of elevation and enchantment - we could learn how to rise from that dull situation to live life at its best, again?
I think we tend to go one way or another, and end-up claiming something that is untrue or impossible.
Mainstream secular materialism has it that this life is really mundane; and that the romantic and magical is illusory, a temporary subjective aberration merely - and this is also the view of "oneness" spiritualties such as Western Buddhism.
On the other side are claims that the romantic, magical, enchanted life of "higher consciousness" can (and should) become either permanent, or else available on demand - perhaps by some kind of spiritual self-improvement, or by practice of some kind of technique, method, skill - or maybe by adoption of a right attitude.
But the basic idea is that this-life in this-world could and should become a paradise.
For me, neither of these one-sided extremes are valid. It is an evil form of despair to assume that the bad things in life are real and the good experiences are illusory. Yet, there is nothing solid (just wishful thinking and unsubstantiated claims and rumours) to indicate that it is possible to live a magical life at all times or on demand - nobody ever seems to have done it.
Christianity is the only form of understanding that I know, which takes both sides into account - both the reality of the romantic, and the inevitability of the mundane; and which goes beyond them.
Jesus Christ knew that paradise is real but temporary, and never available "on demand" because of the nature of this life and world (which is both entropic and evil); therefore the only really-real and actually possible paradise is by resurrection to life in Heaven, which lies outside this world, beyond our "biological" death. (And which, of its nature, can only occur by personal choice.)
Only Heaven is "romantic" on-demand and eternally; and that only because Heaven has left-behind both death (entropic change) and evil, which are intrinsic aspects of this-world.
It is exactly because Heaven on earth is real, that Jesus was able to create Heaven and make it possible for us to want and choose Heaven; and it is exactly because we cannot have a permanent or on-demand Heaven in mortal life and on this earth, that Jesus enabled resurrection and created the sustained and everlasting romantic-reality of Heaven.
5 comments:
i think the point of the magical or peak experiences is not themselves as such, but what we can get out of them - in other words, what we can take from them into the 'ordinary'. thus i don't think heaven will have this quality at all times (that sounds a bit like madness, in fact, and abandoning the rational part of ourselves - a return to original participation, not an advancement to final) but rather we will be able to put the ordinary into the proper context, draw the right conclusions about them, and, in a sense, not 'need' them as much. this is the same, for me, as knowledge - its purpose is not in itself, but what we can use it for, that is, creation.
@Laeth - I am not talking about peak experiences but more generally. I am asking why we cannot live and experience our lives on the basis of true knowledge and faith. We get stuck in a living where we may know reality theoretically, but can't experience it. Knowing-about rather than know-ing.
@Bruce, I was also talking about this. to me the experience of 'learning' something (really learning) is an ecstatic (peak) experience - and hence of knowing it later on, really knowing it, really experiencing it, is too. for example, love for my wife. some moments I REALLY know it, but most moments I take that love for granted. the answer to the question, setting aside differences between people, in my view, is that we need contrast. now, we have plenty of it on earth of course, but we are pulled into the valley of everydayness because the demands of life require that we disregard the contrast, and in a way smooth it out so we can navigate the everdayness. since we live in the valley, we can't be concerned with the peak all the time. which is why i think those who live only for the afterlife (the peak) are making a mistake, just as much as those who never pay attention to the mountain right beside them. the answer is somehow to actually direct the attention both ways, to keep both the peak and the valley in mind, which of course is difficult, but we can train ourselves to do it, and life itself, with the conditions it has, seems to be in a way designed for this training. which is why heaven cannot be just an angelic domain.
I don't think it's possible in theory or in practice.
The 'magical' as a romantic experience is inherently a breakthrough phenomenon that can only be had once a certain barrier is crossed — once the barrier has been crossed, you return to normal experience.
But the key thing to remember here is that just because you are no longer having that experience magically or romantically — it does not mean it has disappeared. If you crossed that barrier rightly, then the magic has been integrated into your normality, and you are the better and wiser for it.
To wish for constant romantic or magical experiences means you have a spiritual sweet-tooth — St John of the Cross called it spiritual gluttony — a kind of sentimentality.
The real reason why it's not possible is that it would break the spiritual level of this world. If you were in a constant magical state you would be spiritually useless to this world and unable to participate in its spiritual evolution — essentially you would be in that "other world" (faery land, heaven) which might be satisfying personally but useless to others. That would be a kind of narcissism. This is why Jesus had to come down and participate fully in the humdrumness of this world as a carpenter's son — he couldn't be the Saviour of the world as a magical Hermes alone, revealing himself only to man's higher spiritual self — he has to enter fully into the world's corporeality.
There have been gifted 'mystics' in the world, but the most authentic of them always say that their mystical experiences were useless and unimportant compared to the practical affairs of charity and compassion for others. One such mystic was the Carmelite nun Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, who confessed that she only received so many mystical apparitions because she was too weak to be saved without them.
In the Ch'an/Zen tradition likewise it's recognised that the more magical or supernatural state of the spiritual life is only a transitional and relatively inferior stage, and that the final stage of enlightenment returns us to normal, concrete reality.
"My supernatural power and marvelous activity:
Drawing water and chopping wood.”
— Layman P’ang
@IB - I'm saying that the way you (and those you cite) describe the phenomenon is wrong. Especially I reject the notion that to desire to live at the elevated level ("sweet tooth") is sentimental or gluttonous... The desire is itself good, but not as an end in itself and it needs to be recognized as impossible in its fullness in this mortal life and world.
My attitude is that described for CS Lewis's Joy, and the argument from desire - that we desire it because it is a good, and as a foretaste of Heaven. I regard it as almost an essential aspect of the Christian life.
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2008/09/tolkiens-marring-of-men.html
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