Stories Pointing Beyond Themselves
Anything is a story - any scientific model, any spiritual map, any personal or collective history.
Some of these stories point beyond themselves, acknowledging that they are a map only, and that the terrain is more than and different from any map of it. Other stories either omit this point (maybe it is not so clear to those telling it, or they take it for granted, or they don't see the significance of it), or explicitly counter it by presenting the story as somehow true - presenting the map as the terrain. If it is omitted, confusion can set in. And if it is countered, dogmatism neccesarily follows.
The Universe Story - or The Great Story - typically points beyond itself in one way, and not another.
The title itself does acknowledge it as a story only. It points beyond itself the way science points beyond itself, acknowledging that it will change with new information. And it will also change as social and cultural needs change, since it also has a role as a myth - as a guide.
Yet, it typically does not point beyond itself the way stories in a mystical and spiritual context point beyond themselves - to the eternal timeless Present within which time and space unfolds. Realizing selflessness, any belief in any story falls away. What is, is just emptiness dancing. Any story is revealed as just a temporary and practical tool, absent of inherent value or truth.
Labels: relative and absolute, stories, universe story