Three Simple Things
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Simple is good, and the important things usually prove to be extremely simple. If we can’t state them simply (as Einstein supposedly said) we don’t understand them well enough.
As a boy I received a visitation from a radiant guide who appeared to me in one of those precious visions that come in the half-dream state between sleep and awake. He told me that the knowledge that matters comes through anamnesis: “remembering” what we knew on the level of soul and spirit before we came here this time. Dreaming, as we practice it, is a vital way of soul remembering.
I rediscovered another simple truth this morning from Tolstoy: “Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question that is important for us: ‘What shall we do and how shall we live?’”
The quote appears in Max Weber’s essay “Science as a Vocation” where he famously described the “disenchantment” of the modern world, by which he meant not only the loss of magic and wonder under the weight of scientific rationalism and materialism, but the divorce of many from an intimate sense of life purpose.
The re-enchantment of the world requires direct access to meaning, personal answers to Tolstoy’s question. Active dreaming helps us respond to that question every day.
A third simple truth comes from an inner guide who gave me this counsel in a time of trouble and divided mind in midlife: “Remember that this world is not your prison. It is your playground.”
Let’s remember to play first, work later - and let the work be a continuation of play!
Drawing by Robert Moss