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Kandy W.'s avatar

I had an experience yesterday that illustrates what you are speaking of, Charles, and by sharing it, I hope to inspire others with its implications of the profound benevolence of creation. I volunteer every Tuesday at a museum where I live. 15 minutes before my shift was over, four people came in to look around. The other docent had also just shown up at the same time, so she was chatting with these people as I prepared to wrap up what I was doing so I could leave. I left and went to the library so I could check out another book as I had finished the one I was reading at the museum. I had a flash of walking a certain way home (I can choose many ways to walk home), but I started walking another way anyway. Well, my stomach started hurting, which happens when I am making a "wrong" choice for me. So I cut through the park by the library to get to the street that I had seen myself walking along. And behold, someone calls out "ma'am, ma'am." Those four people from the museum were lost and needed help getting back to the other museum they had been directed to by the other docent after I had left. I was able to give them directions to get back where they needed to be to get where they were going. I got quite emotional after this as I realized the implications of this encounter. That I was meant to show up for that divine appointment, to be an answer to a prayer. How many times others have shown up right on time in answer to my prayers I can never count. But to open myself to such a profound experience humbled me, moved me, and showed me just how much more there is to life than meets the senses. It is a participatory universe, and we are shaping reality even as it shapes us.

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James's avatar

Until we embrace the mystical, and revere what transcends human understanding, we will be stuck in the profane material world. This is what has been lost in the modern world. Indigenous peoples understood that apprehending reality requires both a welcoming of what is beyond our five senses, and an acknowledgement of the limitations of our capacity for understanding. Neither of these is particularly present in today's world. Eisenstein reminds us of this sacred purpose of humanity, and acts as the ember of the transcendent, that must be ignited into flame if we are to ever escape from the prison of our senses. The blatherings of a simple chauffeur can be a window into this reality.

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