The Message of Awe
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.
Related Posts
The Non-Conscious is No Automaton
This insight is central to anything human-related. Two ways to ignore the non-conscious in human mental life These are by ignoring there is anything at all functionally, seeing it as something inactive by itself. In the latter option, the non-conscious is something like a meaningless automaton, an entity of levers, buttons to be pushed, and Read the full article…
About Unfree Freedom
Modern society often celebrates the idea of freedom: of speech, of choice, of movement. We appear to live in an era of unparalleled autonomy, where countless options lie at our fingertips. Yet beneath this facade lies a more troubling reality. Many of our choices are not truly our own. Fear, manipulation, consumer culture, and even Read the full article…
Quality of Depth
Most people would agree that ‘quality of depth’ is profoundly relevant to them personally. At the same time, many may disagree about what it entails. It’s a challenging concept. It’s already challenging to grasp ‘human depth’ since subconceptual processing – therefore also the difficulty to conceptually get it – is an inextricable feature. ‘Deep’ itself Read the full article…