Quotes about sensory (16 Quotes)






    If a tablet is not wiped clean of it's figures, nothing can be written upon it. A single heart cannot serve as the place for two things, let alone for several things. If the heart is filled with the forms of sensory perceptions, it is rare that it would perceive the meaning of Allah, even if one were to say Allah a thousand times. When the heart is empty of all that is other-than-God, if one uttered Allah only once, one would find such bliss that the tongue could not describe.




    Questioner How do you know God Abu Asaid al-Kharraz By the fact that He is the coincidentia oppositorum. Corbin's commentary ... the entire universe of worlds is at once He and not-He (huwa la huwa). The God manifested in forms is at once Himself and other than Himself, for since He is manifested, He is the limited which has no limit, the visible which cannot be seen. This manifestation is neither perceptible nor verifiable by the sensory faculties discursive reason rejects it. It is perceptible only by the Active Imagination (Hadrat al-Khayal...) at times when it dominates man's sense perceptions, in dreams or better still in the waking state (in the state characteristic of the gnostic when he departs from the consciousness of sensuous things). In short, a mystic perception (dhawq) is required. To perceive all forms as epiphanic forms (mazahir), that is, to perceive through the figures which they manifest and which are the eternal hexeities, that they are other than the Creator and nevertheless that they are He, is precisely to effect the encounter, the coincidence, between God's descent toward the creature and the creature's ascent toward the Creator. The 'place' of this encounter is not outside the Creator-Creature totality, but is the area within it which corresponds specifically to the Active Imagination, in the manner of a bridge joining the two banks of a river. The crossing itself is essentially a hermeneutics of symbols ..., a method of understanding which transmutes senosory data and rational concepts into symbols (mazahir) by making them effect this crossing.

    The greatest honor that can be paid to the work of art, on its pedestal of ritual display, is to describe it with sensory completeness. We need a science of description. . . . Criticism is ceremonial revivification.

    I used to try to run five miles every other day, which I worked up to and I was doing it, but I was subjected to my own thoughts for forty minutes without any sensory input, and I couldn't stand what I thought.

    Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations (1) No sea-creature is less than two inches long (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it. In applying this analogy, the catch stands for the body of knowledge which constitutes physical science, and the net for the sensory and intellectual equipment which we use in obtaining it. The casting of the net corresponds to observation for knowledge which has not been or could not be obtained by observation is not admitted into physical science. An onlooker may object that the first generalization is wrong. 'There are plenty of sea-creatures under two inches long, only your net is not adapted to catch them.' The icthyologist dismisses this objection contemptuously. 'Anything uncatchable by my net is ipso facto outside the scope of icthyological knowledge. In short, 'what my net can't catch isn't fish.' Or - to translate the analogy - 'If you are not simply guessing, you are claiming a knowledge of the physical universe discovered in some other way than by the methods of physical science, and admittedly unverifiable by such methods. You are a metaphysician. Bah'

    You can mark in desire the rising of the tide, as the appetite more and more invades the personality, appealing, as it does, not merely to the sensory side of the self, but to its ideal components as well.


    Each person has an ideal, a hope, a dream of some sort which represents his soul. In the long light of eternity this seed of the future is all that matters We must find this seed no matter how small it is we must give to it the warmth of love, the light of understanding and the water of encouragement. We must learn to deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. We must study the moral values which shape our thinking, arouse our emotions and guide our conduct. We must get acquainted with our inner stream and find out what's going on in our heads and hearts. We must put an end to blind, instinctive, sensory thought and feeling. We must take time to be human.

    Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life -- its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness -- conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.




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