I Can Relate, or There's a Little Interiority in Everything

So, to lift off from where we left off: 

All reality is actually or potentially mind-related, inasmuch as its intrinsic essence is actually or potentially incorporated into the knowing mind (Pieper).

If reality is mind-related, then the mind is reality-related, in a kind of inspiraling mutual indwelling. There's a little bit of mind in everything, or as Thomas says, "The essence even of a lifeless thing has life in God's mind."  

All that exists, because it exists, is ordered to a knowing mind.... This means: not only is the eye sun-related, the sun as well is eye-related; all that has being is mind-related in its most intrinsic core. Mind and being are interconnected (Pieper).

Weird, but what's the alternative? An intellect that doesn't know being, or that "knows" only non-being? Doesn't work for me. "Rather, it is part of a thing's essence to be intelligible; that is, to be ordered... toward a knowing mind"-- as in how speech is ordered to the ear, or message to recipient.  

Things are not mute. They merely select their listeners.  

Moreover,

Things do not have feeling, but there is feeling in many things.

Reminds me of what Schuon calls the "metaphysical transparency" of being, but perhaps translucency might be closer to the mark, for as Thomas says, "The reality of a thing, in a way, is itself its light."

Does this mean reality is a giant vertical murmurandom? "Reality in itself is oriented toward man's perceiving mind," and "moreover, the human mind in turn is ordered toward the realm of existing things." 

This "intrinsic correlation between mind and reality always precedes any actual cognition." It is an explicit or implicit axiom of the very possibility of thought, am I wrong?!  

If our mind were not by its nature already in touch with reality, it would never be able to reach reality at all.

As proven by all post-Kantian philosophy, for anyone can sever the mind from reality, but no one can reunite them if they aren't united to begin with. I can think I am all day long, but the solipsistic subject can never cross the bridge back to It Is unless the bridge is already there in the thinking. 

Or in other words, thinking is the very link between I Am and It Is, for "truth is the conformity of an object to its idea," and "conformity of being and knowledge is called 'true.'" 

But I want to get back to this whole question of relatedness, of a relational cosmos, because that's the key. It's a tricksy concept, because it's not something you can ever know from the outside, rather, only from the inside. Therefore, there is an intimate... relationship between interiority and relationality. 

the concept of transcendental truth affirms the relatedness of every being to the inner core of another being, the knowing mind... 

And 

It is essential for any genuine relationship to originate from an inside and extend toward an outside. The pebble in a brook, in itself, does not "relate" to its surroundings... 

Rather, we relate to it because we have an interior that can know the attenuated interiority of the pebble, which is its knowability -- its intelligibility -- precisely. Thus,  

The higher the form of intrinsic existence, the more developed becomes the relatedness with reality, also the more profound and comprehensive becomes the sphere of this relatedness: namely, the world.

So, I can relate to every it:

The world of the spirit-endowed self, a person's "I," spans the totality of all that is; the world of the spirit is the universe of being.

I'll say it only once: the cosmos has an interiority complex, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it but endlessly relate to it, interior to interior, intelligence to intelligibility.