ibid. wrote:I sometimes call the confusion of the two realms the Second Great Philosophical Mistake of humankind. Our needs in either one of these realms cannot be satisfied through a realization of the other. In the finite realm, to be healthy and happy (and even alive), we require an ascending order of things: on the most basic level, we all must have food, drink, shelter, warmth, and sleep—even sex. Then come our needs for safety and belonging to our families, and for love, esteem, and a purpose to our lives. On the highest level, even if we remain unaware of it, we all desire to bring forth our splendor and shine.
Likewise, an experience of the Infinite cannot feed our bodies or fill the human heart with a very tangible and human love. It cannot build us houses or lives well–lived. If we place that burden upon it, as many have in many places, we become tempted to scorn or even deny the created world. “To be in the world but not of it”—I have known people who have tried to follow this injunction. If we do, we can fall into the trap of perceiving the world as merely an illusion or a sort of living hell that we can escape only through God’s grace, or through heaven, or by ending the cycle of incarnations on earth—or even through death. Nietzsche warned us against investing too deeply in “otherworldly hopes,” which can too easily lead us to despise life and blind ourselves to its beauty. It can also make us lazy as we believe that “God will provide.” Or it can convince us that we should spend most of our time sitting cross–legged in meditation on a buckwheat–filled zafu, gazing at our navels as our lives fall apart around us.
More commonly, I think, we seek the Infinite through finite things. We try to make as much money as we can in order to buy as many fine things as we can, and each time we do, we experience a little thrill and feel that we are meeting a very deep need—until the thrill soon wears off and we find ourselves again hungry for more. We pursue power and fame, which act like drugs upon us, swelling our sense of our smaller selves—not, however, into the majesty of our true and deep Self, but more like a drunkard’s gut overfilling as he guzzles down cheap wine. We become gambling addicts, or sex addicts, or even Internet addicts; too often, we hook ourselves on alcohol, heroin, speed, and other very real drugs. We give ourselves over to seeking our soul mates and falling in love. In the very real transcendence of this exalted state, we look for an ecstatic experience that will delight us forever and change our lives. But that thrill, too, never lasts. At best it blossoms into a deeper love. At worst, it causes us to demand of our beloved that she or he should be as God to us so that we can live together inside a private little heaven. As none of us
can provide this divine function for another, our inevitable disappointment can dash dreams into pieces, turn love into hate, and even destroy our lives.
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In “Auguries of Innocence,” William Blake wrote these lines:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And Heaven in a wildflower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
He also wrote: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.”
If we
do insist upon using the finite as a doorway to the Infinite, then no part of creation can be privileged or special. If we could walk at will between the two realms, we could open this door anywhere: at work in a sterile cubicle illuminated by artificial light no less than at a beautiful yoga retreat high in the Himalayas. If we went shopping, it wouldn’t matter if we bought a new house or a shiny new Lexus or a Bic pen—or nothing at all. For Paradise, as the wise have said, is but the world rightly perceived.
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