In Ecstatic Motion
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“The earlier people felt that they were participating in nature. And in some way they were more keenly aware of the participation of their thought. However, in another way they were perhaps overdoing it — in the sense that they were supposing the reality of some of the things which were being projected by the thought, in a way that may not have been entirely right.
Then we developed instead a more objective kind of thought which said; ‘we want to have a thought about something where we don’t participate, where we just think about it and know just what it is.’ That made possible science and technology, and so forth. But that also went too far, because we began to apply that objective thought universally and said it applied inside, outside — to everything. And then we say there is no participation whatsoever by thought.
Now, that is clearly wrong….And I’m saying also that thought clearly participates in perception, and that that is the crucial form of participation. Thought participates in everything; but our ideal of objective thought is absolute non-participation — the idea that thought is just simply telling you the way things are and doing nothing whatsoever. In some areas that’s a good approximation; but our thought has supposed that to be the universal situation.
Thus,…here is one of the questions where thought is going wrong. And this could be said to be very close to the fundamental flaw in the process — namely, that thought is doing this thing and doesn’t realize that it’s doing it.”
— David Bohm
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“Stop behaving insignificantly. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
— Rumi
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…“All is one”…. All art, philosophy and science, if they are true, reflect this vision and further its realization.’
— Ravi Ravindra
At the foundations of this drama we live is the universe in ecstatic motion. There definitely is an element of riotous fun in the simplest things like the wind blowing and a bird singing, if you’re paying attention. But you have to be capable of paying attention. Artists and children are closer to this kind of perception than most adults in our culture because they can operate outside of rational thought.
