The Message of Awe

July 29, 2020 Cognitive Insights No Comments

Some experience it daily, others just sporadically. Everybody knows awe, yet it remains strangely elusive. Diminishing the elusiveness may detract from the mystery. It may also Open one up to even more depth.

Awe cannot be coerced ― yet it can be invited.

For instance, through the environment: the mountains, the sea, a sunset or sunrise, feeling how this is part of an infinitely more expansive universe, a starry night, a religious building, a specific happening, the excellence in any performance.

More abstractly, one feels this – or becomes aware of it – through an encounter with Beauty, Immensity, Depth… with the Unspeakable.

Anything that invites awe can be seen as a kind of autosuggestion.

In other words, it’s a communication with the non-conscious ― therefore, with ‘total self,’ symbolized through the awesome object or situation.

As with any autosuggestion, trying to coerce it, it may backfire.

Eventually, a symbol always leads to total self. A Symbol Is Always YOU. For instance, remember the last time you felt in awe? Chances are you also felt profoundly ‘you’ in that situation.

Awe is the feeling of grandeur in this.

It shows how wonderful and important YOU are. This is the profound message of awe.

At the same time, as in any of the above cases, awe has an awesome effect also because it head-on humbles the ego in contact with the total self ― not standing in the way for a while, being Open. Awe is this combination of humility and grandeur.

An encounter with total self ― therefore also with meaningfulness.

Awe can remarkably feel like coming home where you belong. You can feel at peace with ‘it’: your life, life in general, the universe… in a profoundly meaningful way.

Thus, experiencing awe should always be welcomed as an important moment. It is a close encounter of the meaningful kind.

It’s also a very wholesome moment. At such a time, you breathe sanity. It’s an experience that you should cherish and carry with you. An experience that – if repeated now and then – makes life more worthy.

And yes, this tends towards the mystical.

A mystical experience is always one of awe, even when it doesn’t feel so at first sight. ‘The mystical’ lies further along the road of awesomeness.

Every day an experience of awe is everyday mysticism.

An open door to Open Religion.

Wow.