{"id":499,"date":"2006-07-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/better-to-know-god-than-believ.html"},"modified":"2006-07-14T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-14T12:00:00","slug":"better-to-know-god-than-believ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/better-to-know-god-than-believ.html","title":{"rendered":"Better to Know God Than Believe in God"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Hey guys, I’m wondering why nobody responded to that William B. Yeats<\/a> quote I posted a few days ago. It made my week, so I was hoping it would leave you similarly dazzled. The fact that the great Irish poet writing a friend in the last letter before his death could say that he was happy<\/em> and that he’d finally discovered something he wasn’t sure he’d ever understand, and that the summation of what he’d realized was that man can never know “truth,” he can only embody<\/em> it…well, that whole passage leaves me happy and at peace. One theme of this blog is that life is best savored when we quiet our internal chatter, and integrate a loving spirit into all we do. The Sufis say it is better to know God, than to believe in him. I believe that too.<\/p>\n

Reading what Yeats took his lifetime to decipher, and having that passage available when I am not yet dying, well, it makes me feel blessed and so grateful. This morning, I felt the need to return to the passage. How gorgeous can life get? <\/p>\n

Yeats was a Theosophist<\/a>, someone who subscribes to the theory that there is a divine plan, that all religions speak some truth, and that despite appearances, everything is intelligently leading towards good. I’ve been reading up on the philosophy, which still has its own societies and magazines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Hey guys, I’m wondering why nobody responded to that William B. Yeats quote I posted a few days ago. It made my week, so I was hoping it would leave you similarly dazzled. 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