Dennis Ford in his book The Search For Meaning discusses meaning within four paradigms: the mythic, the philosophical, the scientific, and the postmodern. The meaning we make and the truth we seek are attempted within some meta-narrative which we usually are unaware of and take for granted as the basis for whatever meaning we arrive at or truth we find. The observation that an unconscious meta-narrative guides our meaning making and truth seeking is the contribution of the postmodern view. It seems that the meaning we make and the truth we find we just make up as the existentialists have been teaching for 50 years. And so we wind up back with the observation in the introduction of A Course In Miracles which assures us that nothing real, meaning the spiritual plane, can be threatened because all the projected ego nonsense that we call our lives doesn't really exist. While we resist and recoil at this idea if we step back and look at it from our witness, it is readily apparent that every thing we have created is impermanent as the Buddhists have taught us. It all passes away sooner or later even our scientific findings which seem true until the next issue of the latest scientific journal comes out.
What is the "real" that cannot be threatened?" My answer is the creative energy of the universe of which we are a part and a manifestation. That's the Truth. Meaning is derived from influencing the evolutionary trajectory of our manifestation.
Questions for consideration, possible discussion, journaling.
1. What do you think about the idea of the meta-narrative?
2. What do you think about the statement in A Course In Miracles that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists?
3. What do you think about the Truth that we are a manifestation of the creative energy of the universe and meaning is derived from our attempts to influence the evolutionary trajectory of our manifestation?
The idea of a meta-narrative which we take for granted unconsciously is the lens through which we interpret all our experiences and perceptions. Most of us are not even aware of this bias because it is "common sense." Common sense is culturally bound and one isn't even aware of it until one moves to another culture when we realize that there is another way of viewing things, understanding things, interpreting and making meaning out of things.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your asking this first question. It is one I have given a lot of thought to already and want to think more about.