February 25, 2019 /

The Microcosim of Man March 28, 2016

 

I came across two quotes recently, which though the author of each appears to have garnered the roots of them from different life experiences and ways of being in the world, seem to contain an underlying theme:

 

“I believe that the greatest truths of the universe don’t lie outside, in the study of the stars

and the planets.  They lie deep within us, in the magnificence of our heart, mind, and soul.

Until we understand what is within, we can’t understand what is without.”

Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing. Hay House, 2012.

 

“Each person is a miniature universe in which life enacts and dramatises its processes and events.

The whole world plays upon and interacts with every individual, and becomes intimately

involved in their makeup.  A human being is a togetherness of celestial, spiritual, mental,

emotional, biological, chemical, physical, terrestrial, solar and sidereal substances,

forces and processes, and must necessarily live in and through this multiplicity of

things in order to become a fully evolved being.”

Philip W. Groves, Spiritual Foundations. Triam Press, 2012.

 

The theme is ‘relationship’.  It’s alluded to in these quotes as something almost intersubjective, as something which connects us to something deep and abiding within us, as it does with something equally deep and abiding outside us.  If ‘Man’ is regarded as the representation, in miniature, of the universe, how are we to understand that?

What are those ‘greatest truths’ that Moorjani speaks of in her book, and how does life ‘enact and dramatise its processes and events’ within us, as Groves states?  How are we to understand what Man is or is not, or what the universe is or is not?

Perhaps these authors are talking about reality, not visible or material reality, but spiritual reality?  Perhaps too, they are inviting us to consider what ‘reality’ is?  It seems to me that there are times in all our lives when we know the difference between what is real, and what is not.  The literature abounds with numerous accounts of other-worldly experiences whereby the veil of illusion is lifted and an alternate reality experienced.

And are the glimpses we see then, in the intersection of those two worlds, aspects of those ‘greatest truths’ that Moorjani speaks of?  Are they the shadows of the ‘universe’ that Groves speaks of?   I wonder …

CategoriesStandard

Michele T Knight Written by:

Dr Michele Knight is a Social Worker, Social Scientist, researcher and independent scholar. Her interest and research in the end-of-life has its origin in the lived experiences of her own bereavements, her near-death and shared-death events, the returning deceased and attitudinal responses to those experiences. Since 2006, she has been extensively involved in community development, support and advocacy in both a professional and community services/voluntary capacity in the areas of bereavement and grief, hospital pastoral care, and academic lecturing/tutoring. Her PhD, Ways of Being: The alchemy of bereavement and communique, explores the lived experience of bereavement, grief, spirituality and unsought encounters with the returning deceased.

Comments are closed.