John B.,
I am 100% with you and I have almost taken the same route. Reading J.
Krishnamurthi -- specially Awakening of Intelligence and Freedom from the
Known. Also, I found of Joseph Campbell's book (don't recall the exact
name) about Life very interesting.
Moin
>From: "John Beasley" <beasley@qld.cc>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>Subject: MD Regressive mystics
>Date: (No, or invalid, date.)
>
>David B and all,
>
>Why the breast beating, David? I very much respect your mind, and the
>integrity with which
>you generally present your point of view. In this case you have touched on
>an area that I am
>aware of, and in a sense vulnerable to. You argue that mysticism is
>progressive. You may be
>right. I went through a stage a year or so back when I was certainly
>prepared to believe so,
>and I read widely within the ranks of the mystics, and those like Douglas
>Harding who
>propose a path to mystical understanding. I agree with much of what you
>say, especially that
>there is a difference between the infant and the adult who has had a
>mystical experience,
>though as you admit some mystics would have trouble discriminating. The
>mystic I have read
>most thoroughly is J Krishnamurti, and I have also read quite a bit of
>biographical stuff about
>him as well. I am still quite attracted to much of what he says, and I
>regularly quote him. But I
>suspect that I am like Pirsig after his ten years in Benares. I give up.
>After all the reading and
>discussion and experimentation, I find no significant experience has come
>my way, nor is
>there apparently any 'way' that offers any great prospect of such
>enlightenment. I respect the
>accounts of people like John Wren Lewis, with whom I have spoken, and who,
>having been
>through such an experience, say they are profoundly changed by it. But his
>near-death
>experience was totally unexpected, and he was unable, despite his great
>interest and
>enthusiasm for the topic, to find any credible accounts of how the benefits
>of this sort of
>experience might be found by others. I have read enough in the Zen area to
>have developed
>quite strong scepticism as to the value of 'enlightenment' in the Zen scene
>in the USA, and at
>the end of the day I have mixed feelings about the value to Krishnamurti of
>his experience.
>
>UG Krishnamurti goes further, and radically condemns the whole search for
>enlightenment,
>while still proclaiming he has it. I like his style, and agree with many of
>his sentiments.
>
>I have not read Wilber's book that you quote. My only reading of Wilber,
>some years ago,
>was a disappointment. No doubt he mentions Fowler's 'Stages of Faith',
>which has influenced
>my thinking. I have little doubt that I fall most comfortably into Fowler's
>stage 4, which he
>calls "individuative - reflective faith" where taking responsibility for
>one's own commitments,
>lifestyle, beliefs and attitudes is paramount, and where there can be
>tensions between
>individuality and group membership, and self fulfillment and being of
>service for others, with
>which I am very familiar. He would say that my experiences of sterility and
>flatness of the
>meanings I serve would indicate I am ready to change into 'conjunctive
>faith', where dialogue
>and detachment are both important. In some senses I feel I am already in
>this area, as the
>most important group in my life meets weekly for dialogue loosely connected
>to community
>building, and I feel I have moved on from the overly strong interest in
>intellectual knowledge
>that used to dominate my life. Helping others to generate identity and
>meaning is very
>important to me.
>
>But what you are talking about is what he calls Stage 6, 'universalizing
>faith', and he
>describes this as exceedingly rare. He suggests that greatness of
>commitment and vision in
>this group often coexists with great blind spots and limitations, so he
>would discriminate
>between these people and what Maslow describes as 'self-actualizers'. I see
>Krishnamurti
>falling into this group. It is difficult to talk about these issues, and
>yes, you are making sense.
>
>I am not quite sure I understand when you say "And its not a permanent
>state, so much as an
>event and a goal"; at least, not the bit about the goal. This, it seems to
>me, is what UG so
>condemns. And I think it is the attitude that I find within this discussion
>which suggests that
>Pirsig actually gives us what we can only take on faith that stirs me up.
>If I understand both
>Krishnamurtis they do agree that no-one can show another the way. I think
>UG would
>challenge any talk of a way, anyway. So here is the nub of our debate. When
>a mystic talks
>of his/her experience of enlightenment, how do we respond?
>
>You see, this is where intellectual patterns of value and memes are just so
>inadequate. You
>have suggested a parallel between the Zen primitive and the artist working
>in that selfless
>state sometimes known as 'flow', and I understand what you are talking
>about. They are
>indeed alike and yet different. I wholly agree with you that this is the
>kind of stuff we need to
>discuss if we want to understand Pirsig's understanding of self! But it is
>difficult.
>
>My response to mysticism has been a type of envy; that's my 'needy, greedy
>and now' social
>self wanting what I don't have. Intellectually and experientially I know
>that doesn't work. In
>theological terms, enlightenment is a matter of 'grace'. UG confirms this.
>I am currently using
>neurofeedback to access theta states which are certainly enjoyable, but so
>far at least are
>just light years from enlightenment, however close they are to the
>experience of deep
>meditation. Perhaps one day I shall drop into 'enlightenment' by
>happenstance, and then I
>may have to apologise for my present attitudes. But until that happens I am
>inclined to think
>that my argument is unassailable. Mysticism is a guide ONLY to those with
>experience that
>supports it; it is just another form of fantasy for everyone else,
>including me. You say people
>at any level can have mystical experiences, but will interpret them in
>terms of the level they
>find themselves at. Perhaps. I have had the sort of experience that I think
>Krishnamurti
>describes as 'spaciousness', with altered visual field, and so on. While I
>would like to be able
>to return to this experience, I don't crave it. I doubt that it has
>significantly changed me. I
>assume drug use gives 'cheap grace', if access to altered states of
>consciousness is all its
>about.
>
>I have talked several times about Krishnamurti's discussion with the
>physicist David Bohm
>about intelligence, which is a sort of discovery of the 'truth' of
>something, through reading
>between the lines. I have pointed out that this is how we all have
>developed language, in
>that we have been able to match the new word to a discriminable aspect of
>experience
>previously not discriminated. This is in itself a remarkable thing. I think
>it is an encounter that
>is properly part of what Pirsig calls dynamic quality. But I have come to a
>position that
>asserts that the meaning of 'enlightenment' is in a different category to
>this commonplace
>miracle. In other words, I believe, and there is much evidence to support
>this in the mystic
>literature, that pointing to the moon of enlightenment does not assist
>another to make the
>transition. My own experience in seeking such a transition also confirms
>this. There is an
>intense paradox in 'enlightenment'. It may be stumbled upon, in a near
>death experience, for
>example, but were I to court near death experiences the likely outcome is
>death, rather than
>enlightenment. The loss of the 'I' that seems to be central to this
>experience is not something
>the 'I' can ever organize, pursue, or arrange. It happens, in spite of 'I'.
>It is the complete
>antithesis of the dominant consumer culture we inhabit.
>
>My perspective then is that rather than lament my non enlightened status, I
>must be true to
>my experience of self, rather than attend to another's story of an order
>that dissolves the self.
>I take it I have the support of both mystics and (perhaps obliquely) Pirsig
>in this. Each in their
>own way make our primary experience the fundamental reality. If my
>experience includes
>what I can best describe as experiences of the self (mocked in this forum
>when I describe
>waking with a feeling of dread because 'I' am culpable in some way, I can't
>find a clearer
>example as yet) then I have no choice but to honour my experience. Sure,
>that doesn't mean
>I can't seek to explore further and see if what I am talking about is an
>intellectual construct.
>There is a sense in which I quite accept Pirsig's critique of the more
>rediculous pictures of
>the self. But I am not about to take on board an intellectual statement of
>the way things are
>from Pirsig, or anyone else, that does not accord with my experience. His
>mystic views do not
>mesh with my experience, however seductive they appear.
>
>I draw some consolation in all this that perhaps the finest assessment of
>what it means to be
>an artist was written by someone who wished to be but felt himself not to
>be an artist. I am
>referring to "Art and the Artist" by Otto Rank. Perhaps my lack of
>experience of
>enlightenment does not invalidate my input.
>
>John B
>
>
>
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