Many religious organizations do not want you to have doubt. They want you to be firmly fixed in what they furnish. What they furnish is fixed and they don’t want you to waver from it. Propagandists do not want you to waver from rigid frameworks. Many of us were taught not to doubt. We were instructed, directly or indirectly, to adhere to set patterns without question. We were taught that that is what keeps us safe and secure.
Doubt — wonderful, dynamic, alive doubt — is not rigid like a dead rock. It involves a living, enquiring mind that intelligently perceives without merely clinging to the apron-strings of past patterns. If you are of a wisdom that intelligently doubts, then you might not be safe and might not be properly valued by others (in their set groups and ways); they might despise you or even hate you. Depth cannot be discovered by clinging to the superficial. The dry, rigid rocks and shallows might appear to be safe, but they are not where the electric, profound, alive secrets dwell. Many look at things through what they accepted, which may not really be looking much at all. When you look only with (and from) what you’ve been taught, you may not be perceiving much at all; it may then be others’ reactions of the past… that is looking… not you.
To a young person, one would say that it is prudent to question things wisely and intelligently. Don’t, within reason, accept what anyone says is true; find out for yourself. In that movement to “find out,” the instrument of the mind must be precise, must not be jaded by others, must not be contaminated by others. Therefore, understanding the instrument and keeping it pristine and uncontaminated may be of the utmost importance. Only a dynamic, pure instrument perceives without distortion. Symbols are second-hand and synthesized; they may have little to do with pure observing in the deepest sense. Most look through (and “as”) the symbols (e.g., words, patterns, and images) that they accepted and absorbed from others. The symbol is never the actuality; it is a second-hand post-impression.
Crab Spider with Fly in Rose Flower. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016
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