Ihave been somewhat unwell recently, so the blog has not been getting much attention. I have more time for reading though, and there’s currently a rich seam of books I’m visiting and revisiting – including some by Maurice Nicoll, friend of Jung and wonderful interpreter of Ouspensky.
Recently I’ve been struck with Nicoll’s statement that “man is a certain ratio between the visible and the invisible”. Nicoll goes on (in his book Living Time):
Man has inner necessities. His emotional life is not satisfied by outer things. His organisation is not only to be explained in terms of adaptation to outer life. He needs ideas to give meaning to his existence. There is that in him that can grow and develop – some further state in himself – not lying in “tomorrow” but above him. There is a kind of knowledge that can change him, a knowledge of quite a different quality from that which concerns itself with facts relating to the phenomenal world, a knowledge that changes his attitudes and understanding, that can work on him internally and bring the discordant elements of his nature into harmony.
There’s advantage in being unwell – that “ratio” seems more stark, more delineated. And our purpose, distinct from the material, of bringing our natures into harmony, seems more clear.
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Ron, thank you for turning my attentions to Maurice Nicoll. I will be sure to follow up and get his book(s) for my winter reading. I have been focusing on my own blog site, on the writing and the photos having little energy for visiting other sites such as yours. I hope that I can find more energy to return more often. I do hope that you are more well soon.
Thanks Robert for your kind words. Yes, I’m certainly getting better and hope to be back blogging with more frequency next year. And I’ve been enjoying your recent photos and comments on your blog. Maurice Nicoll’s “The Mark” is another book of his I really like, written at the end of his life so somewhat unfinished, but very insightful for me.