“the moment of awareness has its significance for all time”
When the mind is quiet, we come
to know ourselves as the pure witness.
Nisargadatta
Joseph Campbell describes the Great Insight as “the absolute, non-dual state [Oneness] beyond all categories, visions, sentiments, thoughts, and feelings whatsoever.”[i]
In a Oneness worldview, everything is indeed interconnected, interdependent and interrelated. The movement known as deep ecology works to cultivate “ecological consciousness [which is] the insight that everything is connected.”[ii]
Ken Wilber describes the Great Insight in a discussion on time and space: “The witness [observer] is aware of space, aware of time—and is therefore itself free of space, free of time. It is timeless and spaceless—the purest Emptiness through which time and space parade … . And because it is timeless, it is eternal—which doesn’t mean everlasting time, but free of time altogether.”[iii]
Insight # 102 comes to us from Rollo May (1909-1994) an American psychologist and author. He developed an existential and humanistic approach to psychology where he favored the individual’s strengths, internal resources, and abilities to make better decisions.
“The essence of self-awareness and insight is that they are ‘there’—instantaneous, immediate—and the moment of awareness has its significance for all time.”[iv]
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Additional Reading:
- The Great Insight, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
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[i] Campbell, Joseph. Myths To Live By. New York: Bantam, 1973, p. 116.
[ii] Wilber, Ken. Sex, Ecology and Spirituality. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1995, p. 5.
[iii] Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Boston: Shambhala, 1996, p. 224.
[iv] May, Rollo. The Discovery of Being. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. 1983, p. 137.
