We must never confuse the Absolute per se with what is absolute for us. To do this is to reduce the Transcendent to an immanent representation of transcendence. We must never do this, but we cannot avoid doing it, incessantly, forever.

We must never confuse the Infinite per se with what is infinite for us. To do this is to reduce the Transcendent to an immanent reference to transcendence. We must never do this, but we cannot avoid doing it, incessantly, forever.

We are bound tightly by the ontology we have developed within the narrow horizon of our personal experience so far. We count the beings we have taken for given and imagine ourselves counting forever, and we call this infinite. Then we stare at the glaringly blank inner surface of our intelligence — a spherical horizon with everything inside it and nothingness outside it — and finding anything beyond this inner surface unintelligible, declare the contents of the sphere absolute.

Our knowledge makes us as gods — tiny, stupid, unimaginative, incurious, petty gods — terrified to discover that we are the furthest thing from absolute or infinite — terrified to relate ourselves properly to the Transcendent who absolutely and infinitely exceeds, envelops and involves us.

“Ah, sahib. It is metacognitive incompetence all the way down, and all the way out, in every direction.“