How do you know you're not blind to so many truths of life?

sookie said:
There are some truths that do unite us.

We all need to eat, we all need to clean, we all need to have some form of love and caring, we all have a need for friendship. This is all in varying degrees of course. We all have strengths, and weaknesses. We all have life challenges. We all need money to live.

I think that we all need something to focus on. Depending on the person depends on what the focus is on. Some they live their lives looking after family (or at least for a time), or working, or collecting money and power ect. All people are seeking something. They either seek to watch tv, or seek to relax, or seek religion/knowledge, seek a relationship.

What do you guys think?
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I think the various theories of evolutionary psychology and Jung's ideas on the collective unconscious would agree with you.
 
TheDaringHatTrick said:
If there's anything that I wish we weren't blind to is the idea that knowing all "truths" is not necessarily the holy grail; it's the acknowledgment and openess to different perspectives that truly enriches our experience.
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NeverAmI said:
Well said TDHT.
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So glad you highlighted this....it is very true. If I've learned anything in fumbling around in the truths of life it is that things are never what they seem at first glance. I go in thinking one thing and come out realizing something different. One example is that truth is a "thing" to be posessed. In reality it is a connection to be lived in. Very different dynamics.....and even more wondrous than I'd ever imagined!
 
May said:
Is it possible the truth is right in front of us but we're oblivious?
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These words have stayed with me, May, for many days now...and I am grateful to you for that.

It does seem there is a veil covering our lives and our existance that, by design, can be completely ignored. Our lives can continue on unabated without giving it so much as a second thought....and yet it is always there. To break through this veil requires something from us. Even though we get glimples through the veil every day, it is still a step we as individuals must deliberately take in order for us to pass through. It invites us. Some fear passing through because the passage may bring consequences we cannot, or will not be able to, deal with. For those willing to pass through, a unique brand of courage is required...I might call "faith." Faith that in the deepest truth, on some wondrous level, all is well.
 
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May said:
You know when you learn a new word, suddenly you notice it in everything you read? What if the same thing is true about more important things, like how life works and what the purpose of it all is..what if our eyes see it but our minds don't perceive it? Is it possible the truth is right in front of us but we're oblivious?
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I think it is possible, and likely.

My metaphor for truth and our ability to perceive it is the story of the three blind men and the elephant. I accept that I am a blind man. Sometimes I wonder if there is even an elephant.
 
Norton said:
They say you'll lose weight if you eat less. You eat less. You lose weight. Confirmed--eat less and you lose weight.

They say stoves are hot. You touch a stove and burn yourself. Stoves are, indeed, hot.

If you take ibuprofen for your headache and the headache goes away, your experience is consistent with what was claimed.

If you ski down a hill and lean back too far, you lose your balance, just like your ski instructor told you.

I could go on and on, but I trust that you see what I mean. Your whole life is just one continual confirmation of truths. You live your life according to such truths, sophistry be damned.
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You need to account for your limitations as a human being. If you knew that you were actually just a computer program, crafted by super technologically advanced beings, and that you actually live in a "matrix" like world, would you care, or would you be content with just living on knowing that you're stuck in this reality anyways.

I care. It would challenge our entire value system that we live by.

mf said:
I've never really understood why people are in frantic searches for the 'ultimate' truth. To me, I guess it's never really mattered. In the end, I'll only know what I believe to be true. And in the end, does the ultimate truth really even matter? What difference will be made in our lives if we 'discovered' god was in fact out there? Would it change anything? No. Just because we learn something, doesn't really change what has always been or what will always be. The ultimate truth will always be the ultimate truth, whether or not we know it. Sure, it's fun to look for it, but why get bent out of shape if we never find it? Our knowledge of it won't make a difference in the end.
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Matters to me. How can you possibly take your value system seriously otherwise?
 
tovlo said:
My metaphor for truth and our ability to perceive it is the story of the three blind men and the elephant.
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Good point! I might add that there is the possibility of, over time, accessing (generally through some study) a variety of time-tested perspectives on truth. In a sense, if we immerse ourselves in enough of these, we can actually make out the elephant...that is, truth....although we may never fully grasp every single detail or nuance. It is never simply what we thought when we accessed only our own perceptions. It includes these, yes, but there is so much more. It would be like coming full circle to where we started, but with an entirely new perspective.
 
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I've been pondering on what exactly is a human being. I have a body, inside my body I have organs, inside those organs there are cells, inside cells there is DNA and so on. If we continue like this, I seem stuck because there is nothing else. It's like the layers of the onion. It looks like an onion but if you go deeper and deeper we find nothing.

I think everything could be related to this. So, are we nothing?
 
Crow said:
Depends on how deep you are able to look and what you are using to see.
http://microwavebackground.blogspot.com/
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What exactly do you mean by this?:

Down among the quantum particles: the uber-microscopic specks that everything is made of, they are blinking in bewilderment at the realization that beyond those particles, lies a framework of pure consciousness.
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Actually, I do know what you're talking about, but I guess I just want to hear another person's point of view.
 
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We propably are virtually blind to pretty much everything around us: we have evolved to survive, not to comprehend (though a little bit of the latter makes the other one easier). I do honestly believe, that the only thing we can know for sure, is that we can't know anything for sure. Yes, I know, this line of thought leads all the way to solipsism, and it's not like I act like I can't aquire knowledge myself. It's more of an underlying ideology than an active belief: you may not be right, or know anything, but as long as you remember it and question things, you'll propably be all right.
 
Quote:
"All those childhood traumas magically wiped away, along with most of your personality"

Interesting this:
What is personality anyway?
What use is it?
Do we need it?
Does it weigh us down?
Does it mire us in the past, harming our ability to be in the present?
 
pierce said:
Matters to me. How can you possibly take your value system seriously otherwise?
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I can only speak on my personal experience and beliefs on this matter; so if anyone objects or disagrees, that's fine and dandy.

My value system is relative to the world around me, the world I think to be real, the world I assume is real, all working off of values/mechanics that I believe to be real. However, I admit that I cannot be certain that anything is actually real to what actual reality is. Sure, it seems real enough to me (and that's enough for me to give it value), but I have no way to prove it. I could be a brain floating in a vial somewhere, forever consumed by a never ending dream. Everything I know could be an illusion. Much like a schizophrenic's world is real to them, my world may only be so real to me.

I don't think I'll ever (at least as a human) be able to know, 100% without a doubt, that what I think and believe to be reality, actually is. I don't think I'll ever know what the universal truth is. I enjoy searching for it, but if I never find it, my knowledge of the world will be no different, and no harm to me will be done.

That's why in the end, it doesn't really matter to me.
 
Crow said:
Interesting this:
What is personality anyway?
What use is it?
Do we need it?
Does it weigh us down?
Does it mire us in the past, harming our ability to be in the present?
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I'll venture a guess from my neck of the woods...

Personality could be seen as basically person-ality! It is the unique expression of our personhood, our wiring, the many facets of our emotional and other responses to the world we live in. It is amazing to watch personality emerge in a baby...and sure enough 30 years later much of that early makup is still intact!!

I see basic personality as a gift. Yes, we can efface it and skew it, but essentially it is a gift connected to our existance. I like here the maxim that "Grace builds on nature." In this case, our personality would interact with the world no matter how rooted, or wise, or learned, or saintly we may become...the expression is basically coming from this internal hardwiring that is almost impossible to escape. We can inform our personality to be more balanced or healthy...but in the end I think we just have to go with what we have.

Many things in life can hold us back, but I might submit that personality may not be one of them. Our assumptions may be limited, our personhood wounded, our expression of personality limited, but that essense is still there and it is part of our giftedness.

The more common dilemma, it seems to me, is not so much with our personality, but with our false self...a self disconnected from deeper awareness of a more spiritual nature. From early on we see the world as full of lack...if we continue in this mode as we grow we may experience more percieved limitations than we are actually destined for. Connection to spiritual/cosmic truth helps us to see the world as immensely full and without lack. The state of this sense of self could alter how we experience our personality (and everything else), but the self sense is the issue...not our personality per se.

My random thoughts...
 
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I thought this was just called ignorance...

which mind you is absolute bliss!
 
May said:
You know when you learn a new word, suddenly you notice it in everything you read? What if the same thing is true about more important things, like how life works and what the purpose of it all is..what if our eyes see it but our minds don't perceive it? Is it possible the truth is right in front of us but we're oblivious?
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Ooh, good topic, May! :) I think you're right. That's why the important thing is to keep moving forward. Like others have said, when we make unbending dogma our goal, we stunt our own growth. As we move closer to truth we find better and better ways to approach and understand and describe truth. We'll likely never get it perfect, but what matters is that we keep going.
 
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