Theory and Practice ~ Form v. Experience

In his blog, Robert Rodriquez Jr  Robert Rodriquez Jr Website quoted Albert Einstein  who said– 

“In theory, theory and practice are the same. 

In practice, they are not.”  

This comment of Einstein resonated with me on several levels. In 2006, when my wife Cecilia was struggling in a coma with Cancer in the ICU of a hospital, her doctor and our friend, Dr. Magdy told me, “her illness is not following the textbook … we need to put our heads together and try to figure out what is happening within her body.”  

While I studied the old testament in college, much was made of the check list, namely, the ten commandments. The ten commandments were a list given to Moses telling people, you should do this, you shouldn't do that. In many ways it was a primitive coding of rules to keep people in society functioning. 

In the new testament, the Mystic Jesus updated  the ten commandments with an experiential guide of love. He moved from the code on the tablets (The theory ... the form) to the experiential dynamic of love. His advice was: acknowledge and be one with God for in being one with God, you will be one with yourself, you will function at your best, you will be your most creative. His second piece of advice was love yourself, which implies take care of yourself in a positive way. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do nothing to harm either yourself or your neighbor. Jesus’ advice took us from a checklist to the now moment, how do we relate to ourselves, to others. It gives us the responsibility to guide our actions not  based on a list but on our internal God-self essence and how we relate to other God-self essences whether people, nature or things that we create. This God self-essence is one of love and creating expansion. 

Theory is conceptual. Life is Experiential. The more open we are, the deeper it goes, the more creative it becomes.