I would make Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit Patiently by the way-side, while I traced The mazes of the pleasantwilderness Around me. She should be my counsellor, But not my tyrant.For thespiritneeds Impulses from a deeper source than hers, And there are motions, in the mind of man, That she must look upon with awe. I bow Reverently to her dictates, but not less Hold to the fair illusions of old time — lllusions that shed brightness over life, Andglory overnature.
I had anexperience...I can'tprove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that Iknow as ahuman being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever... Avision of theuniverse that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how … rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that isgreater than ourselves, that we arenot —that none of us —are alone! …Iwish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for onemoment, could feel that awe, andhumility, andhope. But … that continues to be my wish.
There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from aknowledge ofscience, which only adds to the excitement andmystery and awe of aflower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.
In our reflection we must go back to where we stand in awe before sheer being, faced with the marvel of themoment. The world is not just here. It shocks us into amazement. Of being itself all we can positively say is: being is ineffable. The heart of being confronts me as enigmatic, incompatible with my categories, sheer mystery. My power of probing is easily exhausted, my words fade, but what I sense is not emptiness but inexhaustible abundance, ineffable abundance. What I face I cannot utter or phrase in language. But the richness of my facing the abundance of being endows me with marvelous reward: a sense of the ineffable.
We manipulate what is available on the surface of the world; we must also stand in awe before the mystery of the world. We objectify Being but we also are present at Being in wonder, in radical amazement. All we have is a sense of awe and radical amazement in the face of a mystery that staggers our ability to sense it.
Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe. Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe.Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith. Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the world becomes a market place for you.The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion to God.
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Awe arises in evanescent experiences. Looking up at the starry expanse of the night sky. Gazing out across the blue vastness of the ocean. Feeling amazed at the birth and development of a child. Protesting at a political rally or watching a favorite sports team live. Many of the experiences people cherish most are triggers of the emotion we focused on here — awe. Our investigation indicates that awe, although often fleeting and hard to describe, serves a vital social function. By diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may encourage people to forego strict self-interest to improve the welfare of others.
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! TheUniverse is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."Areligion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe asrevealed by modernscience, might be able to draw forth reserves ofreverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventionalfaiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.
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