Friday 22 November 2013

Lost in the known

      
Where there is life there is mystery. In the beginning this mystery takes the form of fear. And what is it we are afraid of? We are afraid of simple things like the dark - what cannot be seen and what lurks in the dark. What lurks in the dark we learn may hurt us, kill us or kill those we love. We do not know what lurks in the dark except that it is unknown we are surrounded by things to be afraid of. With the dawning of self-consciousness we begin to fight this fear. How? By turning the unknown the mystery into the known. This is a clever trick because all there can ever be is mystery yet nevertheless our task is to turn mystery into the known. The known is invented through language and reason. All language is composed of belief and in belief we are able to pretend that something is known, once this is realised our goal is to know everything and to understand everything through the wonderful invention of belief. Over time we forget the truth, the mystery and we find ourselves completely lost in the known of our own beliefs. Now we find ourselves surrounded by new fears – these are the fears of neurosis, which turns out to be the fear of what is known. No longer are we afraid of the dark now we are afraid that there is something wrong with us and once this is believed we are lost again. Faced with this new fear we can either run away from this fear through drink, drugs, sex, pleasure or the pursuit of more beliefs-knowledge, or finally turn and face the mystery. When we are truly able to do this we find that the known is slowly dissolved until all that is left is mystery and mystery rather than being something to be afraid of becomes the solution to all our fears. Fear can only exist in the mistaken notion that something is known.