Isaiah 29:9 · World English Bible
Isaiah 29:9 Meaning Pause and Wonder
Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
What does Isaiah 29:9 mean?
Drunkenness needs no wine. Thought is the older intoxicant, and a man swaying under the weight of his own certainties walks the same crooked line as one leaving a tavern, except that he calls it conviction.
From the Indian Guru reading below.
Isaiah 29:9 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Indian Guru
AWARENESS
Indian Guru
Drunkenness needs no wine. Thought is the older intoxicant, and a man swaying under the weight of his own certainties walks the same crooked line as one leaving a tavern, except that he calls it conviction. A whole people staggering in this way looks like ordinary life, so nobody suspects it.
Wonder is the sobering. To stop and be astonished is to lose, for a moment, the ability to explain, and in that gap the knower dissolves and there is only looking. The blindness worth having is the willingness to look at something without already knowing what will be seen.
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Indian Guru lens
Live Isaiah 29:9 today
- Walk somewhere familiar today and let yourself be surprised by one thing you have passed a hundred times, a tree, a doorway, a face. Do not explain it to yourself, just look until the looking is longer than the label.
- In one conversation, say honestly that you do not know. Then stay in the question with the other person instead of filling the gap with an opinion you are not sure of.
- When you feel absolutely certain in an argument today, pause and ask yourself what you would have to see to change your mind. If the answer is nothing, you are drunk rather than right.
When did you last look at something without already knowing what it was?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
A teacher pours tea until the cup overflows to show a visitor who arrives full of answers. A mind convinced it already knows has no room for what is in front of it.
Taoism · Chuang Tzu
The frog in the well is certain about the size of the sky. Certainty is not a sign of seeing clearly; it is often a measure of how small the well is.
Sufism · Rumi
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Astonishment opens a door that explanation keeps politely shut.
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