Wednesday 23 July 2003

Pic of the day: OK, perhaps this is a negative view ... but let me explain!

Before auras

while I was writing my speculation about semi-astral planes, I looked around on the net and read a bit more about astral planes. There was a fascinating site about various planes and their auras. Not that I take any of this at face value, of course. I see it as mere symbolism, although some people are convinced that they can physically see a person's aura in full color. That's pretty creepy, whether they actually do it or are just seeing things; any of the two is creepy. The best one can hope for is that they are making it all up for fun or profit. But I doubt so. I have seen enough strange things in my life to know that even if you break away from consensus reality, you can still perceive a world that seems to fit together, to make as much sense as the common world, if not more so. Unlikely coincidences, knowing things that I had never learned ...

Anyway, auras. There were some fascinating illustrations of auras on a site. Some of them were like I had expected them, colored layers around the body. But this person claims to have seen many different layers of aura, some of which extend quite a bit out from the body and look rather different. And when I came to this one, I stopped and stared. It does not look like an aura to me. But it does look like something. Apart from the colors, which are all wrong, it looks a lot like I used to visualize my long-time best friend, when she was a kid. I did not remember how she looked like, for some reason, when I tried to think of her I saw a strange pattern of light instead. I found that very strange indeed. This is not quite the same, the one I remember was a bit different and bluish white. But it was still a shock to see it, because it was more similar than anything I had seen before, and I had kinda wondered what was going on there. I never actually saw her like that, it was only when I tried to recall how she looked. (Incidentally, thanks to photography, I can now remember how she looks. I need to see a static picture to commit it to memory, and she was never static...)

***

Shortly thereafter got my hands on the anime Psychic Academy Aura Banshou, which was exactly about auras, although in a science- fiction like way. But more than auras and astral powers, it is a story about love and hate and fear and longing, the raging emotions in a human soul. Well, at least a young human soul. After watching the anime, I am reading the manga. It is slow going, but quite interesting, as it is different from the animation. And there is this one episode, featuring a young man who is very strong in his aura, like a low-level superhero. But he is also kinda puffed up and self centered, and insensitive. After a rather tactless comment, he is slapped by a young girl, and the female teacher comments gleefully: "Before auras, you should try understanding the hearts of girls."
Is that even possible?

In the Bible, the holy book of Christians, the apostle Paul writes a praise to love. He says among many other things that if you don't have love, it is worthless to have all knowledge, or to have all faith so as to move mountains. Love does not brag, it seeks nothing for itself ...

Now, mountains are pretty heavy. I would be quite content, at least for a while, simply to levitate cars and such. But let us face it, there is no way I would not be puffed up, there is no way I would not be proud. Like the imaginary character in Psychic Academy, I would enjoy impressing people, and the girls in particular. How do I know? Well, experience from the past. I have done far less impressive things and still felt myself drawn to the chase for glory. They say that power corrupts, and I for one believe it is so.

***

Oh, and I tried to look at the aura around my hand today. It looked light blue, but I think that was just after-images which I saw because I was tired. ^_^* I tried to look between my fingers like Ai-kun does, and then it looked more stable and darker blue. It is probably still imagination though. Which may be just as well. I don't trust auras and all the psychic stuff.

I'm not sure if I trust love either ... Understanding the heart of girls seems right up there with moving mountains!

[P.S.: The love St. Paul writes about is obviously the divine love, with which I am much more comfortable. I believe you can attest that the human love, the fall-in type, can be quite boisterous and pitifully selfish. More about that again and again, I suppose.]