Little Thoughts on Roads and Reality.

I mentioned in a recent post that I’ve always been driven to search for the unknowable – and by ‘unknowable’, I mean aspects of reality which are invisible, inaudible, and untouchable to humans possessed of only the normal range of faculties.

I realised just a few minutes ago that ‘search’ is an inaccurate term because I know of no way of doing that. It seems to me that what I’m really doing is holding myself in a permanent state of readiness for when the time is right to become aware of such an aspect, which I think has come close to happening a few times. I’m inclined to say ‘be shown’, but that implies the existence of some third party and makes the matter more complicated.

I know it’s often said that certain drugs can perform the role of a third party, and I consider it feasible that such may be the case. But you couldn’t trust the vision then, could you? You couldn’t be sure that what you were experiencing really was an alternate reality, or whether the drug was simply messing with your brain and producing a delusional state. That’s why I decline to take the kind of drugs which are capable of doing that, and why I resist the lure of shamanism.

So that’s today’s little thought. (And I suspect that my thoughts really are shrinking these days.)

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Nevertheless, let’s throw caution to the wind and relate another little thought:

I watched a YouTube video last night on a woman’s experience of taking a Buddhist retreat in Vietnam. She was less than complimentary about the experience and I felt moved to offer my thoughts on the matter. (I think they were slightly larger than usual.)

This morning I received a reply from one of the viewers which said: ‘Thanks. It helped me, too.’ And now I’m slightly worried because I wonder whether I helped someone to see the light a little brighter, or whether I led his poor soul astray and he’s going to suffer the consequences some way down the road. How many times have I said that it’s difficult to win in this life?

I also received another reply to a comment I left some weeks ago on a video about the origins and authorship of the Torah. The comment said ‘Islam will find you.’ Sounds menacing, doesn’t it? I decided it was just a little boy indulging in some wishful thinking and chose not to be concerned.