The following words of Goethe point in a beautiful manner to the starting point of one of the ways by which the nature of man can be known. “As soon as a person becomes aware of the objects around him, he considers them in relation to himself, and rightly so, for his whole fate depends on whether they please or displease, attract or repel, help or harm him. This quite natural way of looking at or judging things appears to be as easy as it is necessary. Nevertheless, a person is exposed through it to a thousand errors which often make him ashamed and embitter his life. A far more difficult task is undertaken by those whose keen desire for knowledge urges them to observe the objects of nature in themselves and in their relations to each other; for they soon feel the lack of the test which helped them when they, as men, regarded the objects in reference to themselves personally. They lack the test of pleasure and displeasure, attraction and repulsion, usefulness and harmfulness. This they must renounce entirely: they ought as dispassionate and, so to speak, divine beings, to seek and examine what is, and not what gratifies. Thus the true botanist should not be moved either by the beauty or by the usefulness of the plants. He has to study their formation and their relation to the rest of the vegetable kingdom; and just as they are one and all enticed forth and shone upon by the sun, so should he with an equable, quiet glance look at and survey them all and obtain the test for this knowledge, the data for his deductions not out of himself, but from within the circle of the things which he observes.” Is this thought expressed by Goethe possible to achieve? Can we be, so-to-speak, like a “divine being,” and have this type of position in the Universe? How can we suspend our personality and rise above the “normal?” This situation has been achieved by mystics but mostly only at moments. Is there a way to achieve this methodically in a conscious and sustained way?
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 13:07:28 +0000
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