The purpose of the struggle to find truth in word, image and experience
The mind is persistent in its struggle to find an existent word or image or experience upon which to rest its weary head. This struggle to keep what can't be kept takes the form of religion, philosophy, the arts and science and although it is experienced as suffering, it has an ultimate purpose, explained here by Greg Goode in the footnotes of his book "Standing as Awareness:"
"Together, the gross and subtle worlds, the body and mind are meant to be exhaustive. They are a way to include everything that anyone might think could exist. The gross world would be the world of physical objects, including the cosmological universe, planet earth, rocks, buildings, trees, configurations of the brain and body.
The subtle world could be called the world of the subtle energies, auras, entities such as angels, deities and bodhisattvas, heavens and hells, past and future reincarnated lives, dream objects and locations. One could also include abstract things such as logic, mathematics, quantum physics, causality, meaning, language, good, evil, temporality, and all relations. The mind would be all thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, memories, values, and states such as swoons, trances, and meditative states such as samadhis, etc."
So if you are feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted by your inability to to BE good or BE truthful or BE obedient or BE meditative - take heart, although it may not feel like it, you are on the right track!
|