Importance of Symbolic Reality

December 26, 2023 Open Religion No Comments

In the West, most people live in a rather exclusively conceptual (view upon) reality. The negligence of the symbolic (view upon) reality leads to mental impoverishment and suffering.

Symbolic reality is everywhere.

This is because complexity is everywhere. That makes reality (the human environment) too intractable for merely conceptual communication in both directions.

This means that symbolic communication is also everywhere.

There are good and bad sides to this.

The good side is that symbolism is also most meaningful.

It is a continual invitation of the vertical mental movement from surface level to deep, from form to content, from the obvious to the space beyond ― through the ‘doors of perception’ (see A. Huxley).

The vertical is profoundly more meaningful than the purely horizontal. How could it be otherwise?

If we didn’t have it, we would need to invent it.

If we were perfect, we might not have it.

It’s the symbolic – and how we deal with it – that also makes us – humans – meaningful. In other words, without it, we would be meaningless.

Symbolic reality is a direction.

This feature makes it special. It’s like an arrow that, once shot, doesn’t need a target to continue flying indefinitely.

Compare this with manually sticking an arrow right in the middle of a target. That can make the happening entirely correct yet much less interesting.

Contrary to this, the symbolic arrow flies to a different world. Moreover, each arrow makes the voyage in a different way ― not just ‘different’ in one dimension but in many simultaneously.

Most people are seldom aware of this.

Indeed, in order to live and procreate, there is no strict need for the symbolic, and of this ‘other world.’ On the contrary, it can make life simpler, more straightforward, easier to navigate, and more comfortable to live. Unsurprisingly, those who choose for this are frequently more successful in the worldly world.

Of course, the ‘other world’ is just the same world as usual. Symbolic reality is the same reality as usual but seen with eyes of soul. In a more ‘primitive’ environment, people get this for free. In a more ‘developed’ environment, the horizontal may be more developed to such an extent that the cracks toward the vertical don’t show so easily.

The horizontal can make people comfortable as well as comfortably numb.

One may call this the dark side of (Western) Enlightenment.

Western Enlightenment is bent on progress, and that’s OK in many ways. However, the same Enlightenment can turn dark when standing in the way of what it cannot handle.

Not being able to do so may lead to neglecting the other side. That’s where many human troubles start, globally as well as locally, socio-politically as well as health-related.

We need individuals AND society to go vertical.

If this is not done, then people will suffer more and more from things they don’t understand or even perceive within the horizontal plane and a basic cognitive illusion. The result is called, for instance, ‘burnout’ or ‘depression.’ Such terms don’t lead to any deeper understanding or better management.

Symbolic reality can solve these problems.

Nothing else can.

Fortunately, symbolic reality is everywhere around us.

We shouldn’t let it be taken away. This is, we shouldn’t let anything make us profoundly blind.

We should awaken to reality.