To know the world around us as our ancient philosophers espoused was analogous to a personalised, or “bespoke”, connect — with our mind, senses and intellect. Modern science suggests that the whole portrait of such a reality is cerebral, also conceptual, although its basic purport is unlike the reality-web that we all recognise. In other words, our mind is not only a dynamic source, it is also the driving force that creates and guides our “individualised” subjective and objective reality. You’d call it the collective whole — the sum of the parts, part of the whole, and also a montage of our everyday conscious experience.
You’d relate to the idea as the dance of the shadows, or natural rhythms, of our conscious awareness too — where each of us is not just a witness, but also partaker, in the entire cosmic spectacle, or drama. This holds a gamut of possibilities, also unmapped opportunities. Call it a celestial, on-the-ground allegory, or what you may, it ushers in a glow of new hope for all of us. It is this alluring reality that provides us with a sprawling panorama, including the vision to dream, (re)invent and fulfil our objectives.
Most philosophers uphold certain essential distinctions between our world and our ability to know “oneself”. The philosopher Socrates stated that the unexamined life was not worth living. When he was asked to encapsulate how such a philosophical directive could be deduced, he replied: “Know yourself.” So, there it is — knowing oneself is a remarkable proposition in our society, as also culture. It is the gist of life too — a nature-endowed attribute that enables us to comprehend the world we all inhabit.
This leads us to the crux of our thought process — that the mind is a part of us and also the world, although some scholars don’t fancy, or embrace, such a blurred, also unclear, proposition. They challenge the whole view as not all-encompassing, because if such a notion were true our minds would be capable of interpreting everything as a reflection, or mirror image, of the world. This is just not the case — more so when we examine such a context without taking sides and also dispassionately.
The sound of soulful music, including its resonant cadence, is a fitting idiomatic expression to illuminate the point — it is based on the groundwork of awe complemented by variability and also versatility. What begins, for instance, as a simple piece of music may gradually become delightfully harmonious over time, because, like all of us, it meanders and yet returns right into our hearts and homes. It also reverberates with a transcendent, melodious tempo throughout our body — if only we listen to it with our soulfully receptive ear.
The writer is a wellness physician, independent researcher and author
