A while back I started reading a book, just out of curiosity and as a response to my missing Italy at the time. In fact the book is the recount of a lady who spent 3-4 months in Italy, 3-4 months in India and the same time in Indonesia. It's kind of a spiritual journey journal. It has nothing to do with christianity, but I was still curious enough to want to read it. And I have to say that reading the Italy part was fun and satisfied want I was longing to read -- a candid description of my culture.
Well, once I read that first third of the book, I put it aside and practically forgot about it, since I knew it was going to go into some hindu/buddhism sort of endeavor and I really didn't feel like diving into that (the part of the book dedicated to Italy was about food.. could I resist??)
The other day I thought I would pick it up again and see if I could finish it. I read a couple of pages and.. uhm.. I already have a question. I wish I had more readers to this blog to see what they thought about it, but as it is there probably won't be much of a response to this question.
Nonetheless, I'll ask it anyway.
Premise.
I'll have to copy a "couple" of sentences about her explanation of the Yoga philosophy.
Here it goes:
The Yogis,.., say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: "You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not."
Now, my question is:
"How divine is a divine that doesn't know it's divine?"
4 comments:
Apparently, not very! :)
Isn't part of being divine, knowing all?
The only divine beings I know of are God, Christ and maybe the stawberry cake I had in Mississippi! :) Besides the cake, they are all knowing and KNOW it.
Fun stuff!
it depends on what you think "being a divine being" means...
probably, for a yogi, being "divine" has a meaning that has nothing to do with omniscience... and probably, for an occidental student, would take years, to truly understand his conception of "divine"...
How do you define divine?
And can you be devine (whatever your definition) without knowing it?
ok, just "for fun" (I'm not an expert of eastern philosphies):
let's guess that the adjective "divine" is just a rough translation of a concept that, for a hindu, looks like "understanding that "you" and "me" makes no sense because there's no "you" and "me" but just an eternal "everything", with no beginning and no end". in this case, you are part of this immortal everything, without necessarily knowing it. to me sounds reasonable...
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