To Know Is To Recognize

We only see things we recognize. To “recognize” means to “know again”.

If we see something we don’t recognize, our brains scramble to fit what we see into a construct so that it can be perceived and understood. Our brains rush to conjoin pieces of knowledge to determine what this is we don’t recognize. It will not rest until it has a definition by which to grasp this new thing. So the order always is that the brain constructs the definition to which the perceived then corresponds.

It is the same conceptually. We can only know what we have known. Even if we think it is new, it is actually the assembly of things we already know.

And this is the problem because we never will enjoy direct apprehension or experience.

I saw a movie (At First Sight)… based on a true story… of a man who was surgically cured from blindness. It freaked him out because he couldn’t recognize anything he saw. He was a functioning individual before he could see. Now his sight totally messed him up. His mind had no grid to put what his eyes saw into understandable perception.

There is an old Sufi parable: it is better to keep digging in one place rather than run around digging shallow holes searching for water. Dig in one place and you will find it sooner. I am a Christian thankful for his heritage. I’m grateful for the rich and deep theological and philosophical soil I have been and continue to be nurtured in. Hopefully, this rich language has helped me find truth and to recognize it when I find it.

However, like has been said before, the language is not the thing. Is there a way to move beyond the word to see That Which Is? Is it possible to move beyond the language to hear The Voice? Is it possible to move beyond the concepts and experience for the first time The Beauty of the All in All?

Is it possible, as Paul talks about, to move beyond knowledge, which is recognition and indirect, through a glass darkly, to Love, which is immediate and face to face?