[398] of which I spoke, and don't do something about them too early, because your remedies then may be very shallow and lead in the long run to deeper distortions. QN [Owen Thomas] : How do you describe that which transcends the subject-object realm? PT: Yes. Now that is of course also a very valid question. It brings us back a little into the

first lectures of the first semester. I would describe it as the dimension of ultimate concern, or of the encounter with the holy^a. The interesting thing in the encounter with the Holy is that if we encounter it, either within in the so-called "sacred" realm or outside of it, wherever that may be--in a man, in nature, or everything in which it can be encountered--that then this holy can never be transformed into an object which you can handle. Of course you can do even this, and often priests do just this--they can transform it into mechanized process which can be handled; especially in some theories this is the case. But the holy reacts against it. You feel, if you do this, that you abuse it. So the encounter with the holy, or with the ultimate, however you want to call it,

has powers which make the objectivation^b scheme impossible. They are resisting powers in themselves. In a prayer--I often used that example--God is never object without being at the same time subject. Therefore the ordinary prayer, which is done so easily, is only a symptom of the religious weakness of religion^c being drawn down to the level of objectivation. But any SERIOUS prayer elevates you BEYOND the subject-object encounter into that which is ITSELF beyond subject and object, namely the holy, the ground of being^d out of which both come. This experience can be called