Dossier Zelfkennis: Over beelden en verbeelding

Wat een mens naar buiten toe uitstraalt, is meestal het tegenovergestelde van wie of wat hij is.
door Tsenne Kikke - woensdag 9 november 2022 2:36

Beste eclecticus,

Noteer hoe elke mens daarbuiten beelden van zichzelf in zichzelf meedraagt; beelden, die niets met zijn werkelijkheid te maken hebben. Bijvoorbeeld: iemand die met een zelfbeeld rondloopt dat hij een sterk iemand is - of, aangeeft dat hij over zelfvertrouwen beschikt, is in wezen diep in zichzelf net het tegenovergestelde. In een Eclecticus-tekst, getiteld 'Pictures and imagination', wordt daarover meer uitleg geleverd. Hieronder de eerste bewoordingen ervan...

"One must try to remember oneself - at least once a day, and deliberately. To give ourselves this shock, the First Conscious Shock, is a thing we can try to do. It is possible. But we have no time. There is always the roar of things, the torrent of thoughts and worries. There is always something to worry about.

We spoke last time of imagination and pictures of oneself. It was said that as long as pictures of oneself are dominant no change of oneself is possible in that direction. The reason is simple enough and need scarcely be explained. If you have a picture of yourself as being a person who never tells a lie, then naturally you will never notice that you lie. Your picture of yourself as being the kind of person who never lies will satisfy you however much you actually lie. Now here is something that has to become a personal experience as regards the practical psychology taught in this Work. You have to experience yourself in a new way. Nevertheless this teaching about pictures is little understood, even in theory. One reason is that people do not realize that they have pictures of themselves and that they live by their means a great part of their lives. Pictures are formed out of the powerful force of imagination and govern us all and can replace the actual by the imagined. As you know, imagination can easily satisfy the centres. We should all know something of this by now. It is not merely that we have imaginary pictures of ourselves, but we have them of others as well. And this is why it seems to us often that the Work is brutal. Some older philosophers have asked whether everything is not imagination. The Work says that the human family is hypnotized and asleep through the power of imagination, but that there are things in us that are not imagination. The curious thing is that much that the world thinks is imagination is not, and vice versa, from the standpoint of the Work. For example: many think that this Work and all esoteric ideas are imagination and that the aims and affairs of life certainly are real. So people live in this century of abnormal war and wonder why it is all as it is. Can we see that all is as it is because the human family is asleep and all the horrors are done by people who are asleep?

I remember Mr. Ouspensky once saying in connection with this idea of the Work that several writers have tried to express it, dimly realizing the situation, and he mentioned the early work of Wells, called 'In the Days of the Comet'. This phantasy, as the critics called it, speaks of a cloud that passed over the earth and made everyone awaken so that people all suddenly asked themselves what on earth they were all doing - they were at war at the time. It was regarded as an amusing idea.

Pictures of ourselves are formed from imagination and keep us asleep."

Geen mens is zich daarvan bewust. Denk hierbij, bijvoorbeeld, aan het verhaal van de Magiër en zijn schapen... :-)

"Vind mensen, die in zichzelf zowel de motivatie als de aangeboren drijfveer hebben om aan hun Innerlijke Zelf te werken, en we zullen hen gidsen."

- DIMschool vzw, de énige gespecialiseerd in Zelfkennis, zijnde: het kennen van het Zelf -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Voel je je geroepen om Spiritualia te sponsoren?
Klik hier en, alvast bedankt!

Overschrijven kan ook via: IBAN: BE22 7795 9845 2547 - BIC: GKCCBEBB

- Indien je een (bak)steentje bijdraagt, mogen we jouw naam hieronder publiceren? -