Posted by:
schrodingerscat
(
)
Date: March 02, 2021 01:21PM
G. Salviati Wrote:
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> "The most beautiful experience we can have is the
> mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which
> stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
> . . It was the experience of mystery . . . A
> knowledge of the existence of something we cannot
> penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest
> reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in
> their most primitive forms are accessible to our
> minds -- it is this knowledge and this emotion
> that constitute true religiosity; in this sense,
> and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. .
> . I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity
> of life and with the awareness and glimpse of the
> marvelous structure of the existing world,
> together with the devoted striving to comprehend a
> portion be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that
> manifests itself in nature." (Einstein, Ideas and
> Opinions, page 11)
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Einstein, (February of 1950 letter to Marcus)
Maslow had a term for this 'task' or peak human need, self-transcendence.
“Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos”
(Maslow, 1971, p. 269).
According to Maslow, self-transcendence brings the individual what he termed “peak experiences” in which they transcend their own personal concerns and see from a higher perspective. These experiences often bring strong positive emotions like joy, peace, and a well-developed sense of awareness (Messerly, 2017).
https://positivepsychology.com/self-transcendence/#:~