"Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world." ~ Buddha What does this mean to you? Could we already be broken through a shell?
what makes you think we've broken through the shell? i don't really know if there's even a shell to break. i think it's more like.. we're looking for the outer walls of the shell and may very well never even find them
It means we have no idea of the eternity which stands before us. (to me) We are very much still inside the shell.
I think we are inside the shell as far as we don't know what is beyond what we can see, what is beyond death. But we have broken through the shell of "birth", right? so here we are the chick outside the shell still making theories about the eternal that is right in front of us. when really our theories will never match the reality of the situation. that was just my spin on it. but yea, i liked this quote. it is pretty futile in my opinion to conjecture on the afterlife, and what is beyond us in the eternal seeing as how we have absolutely no reference point whatsoever. the worst thing is when people force their conjectures and arbitrary theories on others claiming that they somehow have absolute truth and validity. its like a chick inside the egg preaching to other chicks inside eggs about "the truth" about the outside world, when it hasn't seen shit
To the bacteria in your stomach, you are an Infinite being. They are completely unable to come up with a theory of what you really are or how big you are, because they're perception is limited, by both their size as well as their constraint to the stomach. Likewise, a theory of the eternal is useless, because as finite beings we are completely incapable of experiencing the infinite (infinity and eternity go hand in hand), the only way to truly know the eternal and infinite is to be the eternal and infinite yourself, much the way the bacteria in your stomach can not know you, only the complete being (you) can know.