Month: February 2012

New Technology and Old Spirituality

One of my favorite books is the “Meditations” by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It’s fascinating to contemplate that the most powerful man in the World actually was a Philosopher. “Meditations” was written almost two Millenniums ago but is still ever so relevant. Just take this quote as an example:

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment

So easy to read and agree with, so hard to practise ! I guess we forget again and again that we filter the “Truth” ourselves, as brilliantly captured in the movie “Memento” and so powerfully explained in the sort-of scientific teachings of NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) and in the more spiritual ones by Seth/Jane Roberts, especially the book “The Nature of Personal Reality”. As described by Leonardo da Vinci we Humans are left with the powers of our Senses. NLP and Seth elaborate that we each create our own subjective, personal interpretation, an inner representation, based on the “data” from our senses. We tend to think that our experiences is the “Reality” or “Truth”. They are subjectively but not objectively, cf. Marcus Aurelius. Do dwell on this for a minute !

The Vision is perhaps the most powerful and persuading of our Senses. If we have seen something, it must have “happened” and it should be possible to establish a common Reality with others witnessing the same events. Right ? Wrong ! We are still filtering, we are still being Subjective. Intriguingly, take this piece of new technology as your aid: a camera that takes completely unfocused images ! See this example  and play around with the picture (click around): https://www.lytro.com/living-pictures/2325

Woo ! Imagine that our Mind could do the same. Refocus.

You were right, Marcus Aurelius !