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
True Meaning is Sacred
This blog is a contemplative journey, a guide to see sacredness as something one can cultivate within — a blend of rational clarity and deep personal meaning that’s always accessible and always evolving. What is sacredness, really? Many people think of the sacred as something external — religious symbols, rituals, or places revered by tradition. But at Read the full article…
Always Avoidance, Always Attraction
From bacteria onwards, life has been about avoidance and attraction. This is still the case within the human being, including the mind. Depending on this, we heal or become sick. The mental-neuronal level As neurocognitive science increasingly shows, our ‘universe inside’ contains a myriad of mental-neuronal patterns. [see: “Patterns in Neurophysiology“] These are activated and Read the full article…
About Human Depth
Everybody knows it, and nobody knows it. It is nowhere and everywhere As a youth, I used to read a lot of ‘elite literature’ that costs almost nothing for what it’s worth, has nothing to do with how-to-earn-money, and everything with depth. The writers are frequently found in history books of literature. What they wrote Read the full article…