Theos-Talk Archives (March 1998 Message tt00230)

Dallas TenBroeck wrote:
>
> March 26th 1998
>
> Dear Mark:
>
> Do I, in your answers, detect a doubt about our relation to the
> Universe around us ?

No. You detect a certainty.

> I am not sure what I gather.  Let me see:  Do you think that each of
> us creates in our own mind an idea of what the Universe is ?

Yes. Further it is a personal view, which means that it is dependant on
your personal perceptions, knowledge and experience and also that it may
or may not agree with anyone else's view. This is basic psychology as
well as basic Buddhism. The "universe" is an idea, a mental construct.
Being so, it is relative, personal and partial.

> Then, when we compare our conclusions, or visions, are we then unable
> to bridge the gaps between the various personal "realities ?"

Understandings can be shared, interpreted, talked about and even
adopted. In which case it becomes a shared social construct, which may
or may not agree with other's views.

> If so, then is there a UNIVERSE ?  How is it to be described as
> something that all can access ?

Seems like it, relative to personal experience. We all seem to be
related to each other in, and to the totality of "it."

> As I see it there is "me," then
> there is the "outside mass of beings of many kinds," finally, there
> is an ongoing interrelation between "me" and "those."

This is the personal ego and it's point of view.

> Question here,
> to my mind is, are those interrelations comparable between us ?  Is
> there some common ground on which we can talk or ask for
> consideration ?"

Sure, we can compare them. The common ground is language, art, science,
religion, mythology, psychology, ontology, cosmogony, etc. (i.e., the
whole of culture).

> What about ourselves ?  Are we only "real" to ourselves ?

That's the $64,000 question, isn't it? The seeming "reality" of the
personal ego is only conventional and temporary. It is transitory. What
lies at the heart of the heart of that ego however, "that thou art,"
"Never the spirit was born, the spirit shall cease to be never, dead
though the house of it seems."

> I do not see how we can escape the "arrogance" of saying "I see," or
> "I feel," or "I think," etc...

Exactly.

> but it would be arrogance to enforce
> these views on anyone else.  In fact they cannot be enforced.  Even
> an agreement to submit would be tempered by inevitable freedom of
> thought, will and conscience, would it not ?

Freedom of thought and critical thinking are the cornerstones of
individual liberty.

All I was trying to say was that we only know what we know (of the
universe). It is a thought, an idea in the mind. Try as we might to hold
"the totality" of it in our view when dealing with others, we cannot
assume it to be more than a relative point of view. Relative to other's
similar constructs (which may agree or differ) and relative to our own
admission that "what we know" always exists in relation to what we do
not.

Mark