Replying to LO29599 --
Dear LO'ers, dear At,
Maybe it is worth to explain that the Dutch/afrikaans word 'heelmeester'
(wholemaster) is in itself a whole - it forms a unity of two words: whole
and master. However, the Dutch word 'heel' has two meanings, ofwhich
'whole' is one, the other is 'heal' form the verb healing. It is obvious
that 'to heal' originally means 'to make something better, by making it
complete'.
I had some grinning when reading the reply of At, when he gave an example
of his former chemistry teachers. I hope that you do not become irritated
when I come up with another Dutch word. It is funny, because in At's mind
wholeness was associated with chemistry. In Dutch 'chemistry' is named
'scheikunde' - which means something like 'the art of splitting, or
separation'. What has 'wholemastery' and 'the art of separation' to do
with each other??
> Can we say that the container brings wholeness to these parts so that they
> can be sold as a unit (one item)? I do not think so. Wholeness do not
> force smaller wholes together, but rather keeps smaller wholes
> spontaneously together. This can be observed in the associative pattern
> for wholeness:- X*Y*Z. Here the "umlomo" Y keeps itself with the parts X
> and Z together as the larger whole X*Y*Z. Perhaps this "blind (senseless)
> to wholeness" is caused by the lack of understanding what spontaneous
> involves.
Yes At, you are right. Wholeness is larger than 'whole' (I am not refering
to the length of these words :-)).
Now I saved a part of At's reply, because it nicely shows the struggle of
somebody who is searching for an answer:
> This is a question which i often struggled with. But it is for me like
> swimming in a rough sea. Sometimes i have just enough time to take a gulp
> of air, but most of the time my head is submerged. By this i mean that
> occasionaly i get a fleeting glimpse of the answer, but usually a possible
> answer generates too quickly unanswerable questions.
>
> I think that all three the systemic concepts "whole", "wholeness" and
> "increasing wholeness"=holism have to be taken into account. The
> "increasing wholeness" seems to entail that a system's wholeness is
> not the unique Wholeness. Wait! I suddenly got another idea why a
> person may be "blind to wholeness". It might happen when that
> person does not increase in wholeness. But i am not so sure.
>
> Thank you Leo for prodding my mind with your creativity.
>
> Your initial remark about "leermeester"="whole-master" is haunting
> my mind since i first have read about it. Do we need "whole-masters"
> in the post-modern world? I think they are very much needed, but
> they will have to be "whole-masters" in both body and mind. One
> question which they must be able to answer is:-
> Why are some people "senseless (blind) to wholeness"?
> Can they help those people to sense wholeness when they do not
> know the answer self?
Dear readers, dear At, I have the feeling that after reading these words
that I had a glimpse to some answers to your questions.
- Do we need "whole-masters" in the post-modern world? --- YES.
- Why are some people "senseless (blind) to wholeness"? --- Possibly
because some people's minds stop thinking further after finding a answer.
Some people are satisfied after having found an answer; they do not
realise that there lies another world behind the horizon of that answer.
- Can they help those people to sense wholeness when they do not know the
answer self? --- Not knowing 'the' answer, indicates the mastery of the
whole master. And this is possibly a clue to your questions: keep
searching for answers, never stop searching after finding one of them
(there are endless ensuing ones).
> To keep this topic on course, we have to consider the Learning
> Organisation (LO) once again. Peter Senge wrote that wholeness is an
> essence (one of eleven) of a LO. Can an organisation become a LO when many
> of its members are senseless (blind) to wholeness? I do not think so. It
> is like expecting a blind person to paint what another person can see.
You are right again. I am working on an essay on 'relationships, links and
bonds'. I hope to share it soon with you. I hope that I am able to find
words to open a dialogue on matters like: what makes something a whole?;
what makes something an organisation?; are there different workings of an
'umlomo'?; and what has 'fruitfulness' too do with it?
Leo Minnigh
--leo minnigh <minnigh@dds.nl>
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