i think that's what happens to us all the time. the moment any truth becomes ours, it is instantly down-graded by our own limitations. maybe that's why love is so different to so many people. no one knows fully what it is because no one can know it fully.
i wonder why hate isn't as different to very many people? why is it so hard to define love, but very easy to define hate?
it's like there's a principle of love, but not one of hate. like there's a principle of harmony, but none of dischord. there's a principle of truth, but not one of lies.
then each person has their own version of truth. like each person is carrying around their own shard of a mirror. what they see in that mirror is not false, but it's not accurate because of all that it leaves out. we can't behold a virtue in its fullness as we are now, limited beings.
like chuck missler was talking about two dimensional characters on an overhead transparency: if they looked at each other, all they would see is just a straight line. if you put your finger down between them, they would perceive a miracle. if they looked at us, all they would see is cross-sections of us. just like, us, three dimensional beings when we perceive time, the fourth dimension, in cross sections. we see it as it passes by, but we can't behold the whole thing. ''we can't remember tomorrow'' as chuck said.
and in another journal, this same entry got some comments:
Perception is altered do to our experiences. We are defined by our decisions we have made in life. People struggle with defining love because they haven't experienced it. True love is far deeper than our minds can wrap around it. Hate however, we have all experienced, we have all felt the dischord and strife in life. This is because sin is a part of us all. Love however, when sought out and captured, covers a multitude of sin. We just as people haven't grasped a hold of that concept. How can someone love me enough to erase all the hate? The only answer I know to relate it to, is the love of Christ. That is the true meaning of love. When someone embraces that, and understand that love is unconditional and has greater depth than hate, we can bein to define it.
-magen
''but now we see dimly, as in a dull mirror, then, we shall know fully, as we are fully known.'' ...and it's been a while, but i'll take a stab at somewhere after first corinthians 13.
i say ''perception is delusion'' because (from earlier entry) suppose we were walking in a park, and we both observed a flag, flapping in the wind. you might say ''the wind is moving around the flag.'' and i might say ''the flag is moving in the wind.'' [[we're both right in what we assert, but wrong in what we deny. the ''river of truth'' flows straight between what each of us has said.]] (borrowed bracketed material from Chuck Missler...i guess i'm guilty of ''bracketeering'' :-D )
in other words, to define something like love, truth, etc., we capture it in our own distorted view. our perception is delusion.
-me
Any perception outside of our own perfect perception IS delusional. Hatred is the easier road to travel because it doesn't leave us feeling vulnerable. Vulnerability brings out our true intentions. Most people have poor intentions, thus shun the idea of love even when it falls in their lap. I don't believe we are limited beings. I believe that we live without limitations. We must first find the fortitude to acquire the focused vision in our minds, the will and persistency to endure error, and the energy to make it a reality. The only limitations you have are those that you put on yourself. Limitations are akin to viruses to a computer. Just like the elephant at the zoo. You see those little baby elephants held there to that stake and chain. Years and thousands of pounds later they are still stuck to that same stake and chain. Why? Could they break away if they tried? ABsolutley. At some point, they were convinced that they cannot break away from it. We are all held down in similar beliefs. It is up to our minds to rid ourselves of these beliefs. Just because we do not have the conciousness to comprehend something doesn't mean that it can't happen. Excellent commentary, thank you for posting that.
-matt
I like your analogy about the elephants. There are many ''chains'' that hold down mankind, chains that can be broken easily, but ultimately, it's the belief, not the potential of a person, that determines where they will go. ''imagination triumphs over desire'' It is foolish to hold onto damaging beliefs, I agree.
However, I disagree with the idea that our perception is flawless. If perfection were to change, it would no longer be perfection. Any deviance from perfection is imperfect. If our perception is perfect, then how is it that we all see different things?
We all see different things, so at best, we have to conclude that not everyone's perception is not deluded. Which single person has perfect perception, if no one sees things precisely the same as another person? Who will define love in the exact same way as this one person?
Hate is easy to define and easy to grasp. People have so many differing opinions on love, and for the most part, they're all correct in what they assert, but wrong in what they don't. Why is love so complex? Why do we all have different ideas about it? We can't all be totally right when someone else says something that we missed, but is also true. It would seem we've been handed a very lovely, perfect thing, but all we can make of it is something confined to the scope of things we're capable of understanding.
-me
EDIT:
perception is often times defined by experiences, but experiences, in truth, are defined by perception. why can we not define love? it is because we cannot perceive love. why can we not perceive love? it is because love is beyond the grasp of the constituents of our perception.
perception is the combined product of:
- imagination
- expectation
- belief
- feeling
that which you visualise, accept as truth, and expect, feeling its completion, that is what your perception is b/c that is what will be manifested in reality, for you. (example: About 40 years ago, Dr. Joseph Murray cured himself of sarcoma, when no doctor could help him. He used this very principle to do it. Several other examples exist, such as curing paralysis, blindness, and various other deformities of the body and the mind; but in the interest of space, i won't cite them here. If you doubt these conclusions, then cure yourself of one of these things, apart from the principle of ''the doctor dresses the wound, but God heals it.'')
William James, father of modern psychology said this: ''we weep not because we are sorrowful, rather, we are sorrowful because we weep.''
- it is what you believe, essentially, that becomes your experience.
- you perceive the things that you have already believed into existance.
- not everyone believes precisely the same thing, and therefore, not everyone perceives in the same way or the same things, as others.
to me, someone else might be creating truths that are not at all true. likewise, i might be creating truths that others know to be absurd. how can such a paradox exist so universally, unless all human perception is just a fabrication?
What, then, is good? What is bad?
It still remains that there are principles to one thing, yet no principles, save the lack thereof, to other things.
There is no principle of disorder. There are; however, intangible, unreachable principles of love, truth, and ''good'' (the last one might seem like a stretch, but contemplate the idea of ''a higher lesson.''), just to name a few. I will expound on love, but any of these concepts can be switched in place of the word love:
- Love MUST have come from something we don't understand fully.
- Love MUST have come from something that understands love COMPLETELY.
- If love were our own, we would KNOW IT FULLY.
- As it is, love is just ''a peach.'' That is, love (as we know it) is the best we can imagine it to be.
- Love, really, is better than, or more accurately, ''more than'' we can imagine.
Maybe we're just viewing love in our limited dimension, like we view time. If so, does love has cross-sections to us, so we can only feel one KIND of love for one person at a time? like, the love for a partner and the love for a friend are very different to us.
- Maybe, love is a miracle that we cannot understand, like two-dimensional figures on an overhead transparency, looking at a three dimensional object between them both. They have no ability to percieve all three dimensions, so one says ''it is long'' (but not wide or deep) another says ''it is wide'' (but not long or deep)
- neither view is wrong, but they can only grasp things in a limited way. Everything beyond that gets ''truncated.''
How can i perceive love when all i have are senses that work in 3 dimensional existence?
- There is a key ingredient to love that we are missing.
- We see it in our dimensions as something that is less than what it really is.
