Greetings Jon, Andrea, Elephant, and all!
Having been following this discussion for the past week, it seems to me that several very important views have been espoused that really point to the significance of RMP's two modern masterpieces of thought and literature. Although my thinking is often circular in nature, I will attempt to present my personal "spin" on these topics in an ordinal fashion.
1. Elephant:
p.s. Some of the most highly educated people in the world are *wrong*. It's been known to happen.....
Thracian:
It appears to me that this is the true essence of both ZMM and LILA. RMP as Phaedrus "philosophizes" which is generally defined as to theorize or speculate in an imprecise manner. This is an approach that is markedly different than that of Western philosophy a la Hegel. RMP doesn't say that such-and-such is and "nonsuch-and-nonsuch" is not. Rather, he takes the reader on a journey of discovery during which truths discovered early in the journey may be found false later in the journey, in light of further experience. In other words, the only constant is change. What is true today is false tomorrow - but it may be true again on the following day. First there is a mountain! Then there is no mountain! Then there IS a mountain! It's what the I Ching is all about. It is the essence of Taoism. And, if the Tao could be named (which it can't), it might be called QUALITY! After all, twenty years ago, we would have laughed at the idea of stopping the movement of light - today it is a reality.
2. Jon:
But LILA seemed to me to turn morality back into an arbitrary code...
& Andrea:
But I think that was the beginning: RMP gave me a good way
to welcome back morality into my intellectual world, where I always felt it
belonged. And it did this by working from *within* my prior system of (standard
western) beliefs.
Thracian:
Morality, as a concept, is one of the most confusing and historically destructive forces as it has been the excuse for many a war, persecution, and hatred. Like most Westerners, I was educated in the Greek Classics, Newtonian physics, and the Judeo-Christian culture. Also, like many of my generation, I was drawn to Eastern philosophy through the teachings of Suzuki, Krishnamurti, Watts, and Dass. It was easy to become convinced that "God" did play dice with the universe and that chaos was the natural order since so many peoples with so many different codes of morality, all seemed to be right in their own way. LILA, far from making morality arbitrary, actually reveals to us that the codes are arbitrary and that morality is itself a personal issue, one which, if driven from a pure quest for quality, will always be moral (well, there's that circular thinking creeping in again) and for which codes are unnecessary!
Thanks to all for the opportunity to share these thoughts.
Thracian Bard
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