First Steps to Seeing: A Pathway to Living Harmoniously

When reflecting on the nature of global transformation, it is crucial to first keep in mind that the invisible roots of every single ‘form’ that we wish to create or transform stems directly from the human mind and the ‘way of seeing’ that brought that form into being. This applies to forms of understanding, as well as physical, cultural, and social ‘forms.’

There are two fundamentally different ways of seeing, or invisible roots systems, that the human mind has available to it. Each are linked to the ways in which the hemispheres of our brain function.

Very simply put, these two very different ways of seeing can be summarised as follows. The first is thinking about life, which uses pre-existing thoughts and theories to represent life in an abstract way. The second is thinking with life, which directs our attention to the actual, living process of experiencing life as a whole, living, breathing human being. Thinking about life limits us to what we already know about something, whereas the act of thinking with life has the effect of ‘presencing’ life, enabling us to gain a new or deeper understanding of life, in terms of itself.

In keeping with the nature of Kosmos and to deepen our understanding of what it actually means to be “In Harmony with All Life,” we could use the process of thinking with life to explore our lived ‘experience’ of harmony.

Harmony, like many invisible aspects of life, is something that we can only access through feeling our way into our direct experience of it. We cannot understand harmony by only thinking about it. If we wish to get to know what it truly means ‘to be in harmony,’ we have to temporarily co-exist with harmony itself. Therefore, in order to delve a little deeper and to reflect on the nature of harmony on its own terms, we must draw on our actual lived experience. As harmony is not a ‘thing’ as such, we only become aware of it when its presence ripples through other parts of life. This is similar to the way in which a breeze becomes noticeable when it makes the leaves of tree quiver. This means that in order to experience the presence of harmony we must first choose a part of life through which to experience it.

One of the most common experiences of harmony that we can choose to freely immerse ourselves in is the experience of listening to harmonious music. Whilst writing my book, First Steps to Seeing: A Path Towards Living Attentively, I helped sustain my entire writing practice by repeatedly listening to the sublimely harmonious piano music of Chopin. When listening to harmonious music such as this, the possibility emerges for us to immerse ourselves in experiencing the universal qualities that make harmony what it is.

When I take the time to slow my perception and to give my full attention to noticing the qualities of harmony that emerge whilst I am focusing on my experience of listening to harmonious music I am able to perceive a sense of smoothness. I feel as though I am flowing gently alongside the music. The quality of sound that harmony brings forth makes me feel comfortable and at ease. Whilst listening more deeply, I notice that the presence of harmony makes it possible for me to increasingly open myself to the music, to immerse myself in it, to fully be with it. The harmony somehow feels as though it is intrinsically attractive—in the sense that when I experience harmony I have the urge to lean into the music, to listen further, deeper, and for longer. The harmony seems to hold my attention and makes me want continue engaging in the experience, which in this case means continuing to listen to the music.

Now, how, you may ask, is the act of paying attention to my own individual, unique experience of harmony in any way indicative of the universal nature of harmony itself. Well, as my late teacher, the British physicist and philosopher Henri Bortoft found from his research on wholeness, the whole or the universal nature of a phenomenon only ever expresses itself through its parts. In terms of harmony, its ‘parts’ equate to the concrete instances that we can each perceive directly, through our lived experience. So, in order to truly understand what it means to be in harmony with All Life, we first have to get to know harmony in terms of itself. And, although it is a universal phenomenon, we can each get to know it by learning to use our capacity to think with life.