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Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week

There is nothing pleasurable except what is in harmony with the utmost depths of our divine nature.

Heinrich Suso (CA. 1295 – 1366)

Attingham Park

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21 Comments CherryPie on Dec 9th 2012

21 Responses to “Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week”

  1. Don QuiScottie says:
    December 9, 2012 at 8:13 pm

    My first problem with that one is that I simply do not know what the words “our divine nature” mean. I would be interested to hear suggestions.

    My second problem is that some people (many people actually, at some level or other) unfortunately find harming and hurting others, or just enjoying their misfortunes, to be pleasurable; so are sadistic pleasures from the most minor (mild schadenfreude for example) all the way up to the most terrible (pure violent sadism) “in harmony with the utmost depths of our divine nature”?

    No. I think this quote is another example of soppy, wishful, illogical thinking; and, more fundamentally, I rather suspect that the term “our divine nature” may be meaningless.

    But pondering your thought for the week remains something I look forward to every week.

    • CherryPie says:
      December 9, 2012 at 11:29 pm

      I see this as another quote that can be interprated in different ways.

      The way I saw it was that we are made in the same way as nature and the rest of the universe. I didn’t actually like the word ‘divine’ but I am not sure what you could replace it with to get the context.

      I probably interpreted the quote in that way because of the context in which I read it…

  2. Don QuiScottie says:
    December 9, 2012 at 8:19 pm

    But as often I forgot to comment on the image, which is stunning, and a lovely example of how nature finds mathematical symmetry without trying, but while making the mathematics clear to see it never manages to achieve it perfectly, like no planets are perfect spheres, yet they all approximate to perfect sphericity so inevitably, and no flower heads conform perfectly to the obvious mathematical perfection they closely approximate to. Very interesting to ponder.

  3. james higham says:
    December 10, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    The aboriginals are like this – they are in harmony but when things occur to disturb that harmony, it causes mayhem.

  4. Claude says:
    December 11, 2012 at 5:28 am

    Divine nature means one’s soul, or spiritual nature (as opposed to the physical body.) We all know that we haven’t yet reached the fullness of that nature. Some human beings are a lot more imperfect than others. Hence the satisfaction (I would not call it pleasure) they might seem to get in harming other people. Actually, I doubt bad people are ever very happy.

    In simple words, the thought tells us that if we want to have real fun, we have a better chance if we are good people. That’s my interpretation. And it’s not open to discussion.

    Beautiful photo, Cherie! Though a mathematically imperfect flower, as I am, alas.;)

    • CherryPie says:
      December 11, 2012 at 6:36 pm

      if we want to have real fun, we have a better chance if we are good people.

      That is my philosophy on life and I had a good role model, my grandfather. I think you would have enjoyed conversations with him :-)

  5. Don QuiScottie says:
    December 11, 2012 at 11:55 pm

    Although, always having difficulty in keeping quiet…whereas “divine nature” is a mere 2-word phrase for me not to know the meaning of, defining it as “one’s soul, or spiritual nature (as opposed to the physical body.)” just provides me with an 11-word phrase that I don’t know the meaning of…

    • CherryPie says:
      December 12, 2012 at 12:42 am

      The divine nature as Claude mentions, is soul and spirit (the soul and spirit of the individual).

      I quote myself from this comment thread:

      The way I saw it was that we are made in the same way as nature and the rest of the universe.

      All individual souls are connected to and are an intrinsic part of nature.

      • Don QuiScottie says:
        December 12, 2012 at 10:41 am

        Strong declarations of speculations, I’d say, lacking any definition of the word soul, although at least I do have some hazy grasp of what people might mean by the word, though I’m sure it means very different things to different people even though they often converse together as if they were all talking of the same thing, and as if they knew what the heck it is, which they don’t.

        It’s all interesting to ponder though.

        I wonder what thought you will have us ponder next week? :)