Do not seek yourself in this life, seek others. You can not see
yourself. You will find bits of yourself in this friend and that
lover and put the pieces all together. Be assured: you ARE complete
already. The purpose of the quest is not to acquire yourself but to
see yourself.
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In Islam there is a strong concept of brotherhood. One of the keys to this is the saying that "your brother is like a mirror."
I think that is an amazing metaphor. A mirror points out your faults (and beauty) without casting judgement. A mirror has no memory - once you walk away the image is gone (so a true brother will not remind you of faults, etc.).
MN: Thats a pretty thought. I am fond of the mirror as a metaphore for the mind and have used it more than once. Memory does tend to be filtered, not all that is seen is remembered.
I need to thank you twice for this. The metaphore is apt and I am grateful to have learned it. I am also a little ashamed to know so little of the practical and peaceful insights that I have just assumed must lighten the day to day lives of Muslims.
I'd say that the real purpose of the quest is the quest itself.
By "acquire yourself," do you mean "find yourself"?
Aslam:
yes, more or less "find yourself". The distinction I'd like to make is between suffering a sense of being incomplete, which I suspect is unreal, and suffering an incomplete perception of oneself, which I think is inevitable without the many "mirrors" of our various relationships.
Hmmm... Yes, our relationships do tell us a lot about ourselves, but not everything, IMHO. Nor is it impossible to "see ourselves" in the absence of relationships. And, thinking of myself and the people I know well, our perceptions of ourselves can never be "complete" really, because there will always be more to us than we can perceive. Life would be utterly pointless if we ever did arrive at a complete perception, because then we'd have stopped evolving and all would be known - my guess is that if that ever happened, then we really wouldn't be "living," which is something I can't even begin to imagine.
Hmmm... Yes, our relationships do tell us a lot about ourselves, but not everything, IMHO. Nor is it impossible to "see ourselves" in the absence of relationships. And, thinking of myself and the people I know well, our perceptions of ourselves can never be "complete" really, because there will always be more to us than we can perceive. Life would be utterly pointless if we ever did arrive at a complete perception, because then we'd have stopped evolving and all would be known - my guess is that if that ever happened, then we really wouldn't be "living," which is something I can't even begin to imagine.
Hmmm... Yes, our relationships do tell us a lot about ourselves, but not everything, IMHO. Nor is it impossible to "see ourselves" in the absence of relationships. And, thinking of myself and the people I know well, our perceptions of ourselves can never be "complete" really, because there will always be more to us than we can perceive. Life would be utterly pointless if we ever did arrive at a complete perception, because then we'd have stopped evolving and all would be known - my guess is that if that ever happened, then we really wouldn't be "living," which is something I can't even begin to imagine.
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