WOOD
Have you felt a kind of religious ecstasy in your life?
KNAUSGAARD
No, but they say one of the main things about religious ecstasy is a feeling of selflessness—that you yourself disappear. I feel that when I read Dostoyevsky. I can have that feeling. I can just disappear. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what it means. It’s the same thing looking at art. I feel so moved by it, but I don’t know why. And what is that?
~ James Wood & Karl Ove Knausgaard, from “Writing My Struggle: An Exchange” (Paris Review, Issue 211, Winter 2014)
Notes: Quote – With gratitude, thank you Sawsan. Photo: Mennyfox55
Live & Learn 
losing oneself in something bigger
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Standing rapt before a beautiful work of art, being swept away by a powerful piece of theater, finding yourself dumbstruck when enveloped by a moving piece of music, these are the fleeting moments we must savor….
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Yes, as beautifully as you have described it.
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It was here I found Knausgaard in the first place. With endless gratitude, thank YOU!
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All YOU here! 🙂
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So many times. One childhood standout…viewing Michaelangelo’s “Pieta” at the NY World’s Fair. Mesmerized.
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Interesting how those moments stick, and we come back and back and back again and again to them.
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Wow! And profound!
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Isn’t it though?!! Agree Marlan.
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Rothko emotes…grace.
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yes. and calm.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Great question … what is it?
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I’m still seeking!
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this, it seems, is what spiritual practice and “awakening” are all about….”between subject and object, no barrier” (D.T. Suzuki) http://www.livingnonduality.org/blog/2016/06/06/the-first-and-last-step…..it’s a difficult path….i’m usually in the ditch…:)
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Thanks for sharing the link. I will check it out. And LAUGHING, about ditch. You’ll usually find me there! Thanks for the comment of the day!
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Wow! The Rothko, and that child! and Knausgaard! We are so blessed to have so many ways we can go beyond the mundane. I love what everyone has said…lovely offering, David!
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Yes!
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I know that feeling of losing yourself in a book, but that kind of book is relatively rare. The painting on your blog made me think of a very close, close, close-up of a pumpkin. 😉
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Close, close, close-up pumpkin…one can never have enough…
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Smiling….never enough.
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Laughing. I can see you saying that. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.
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Soma. Soma. Soma. 😉
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lovely. and Rothko is divine
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Yes. To both.
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