Hi Group:
Thanks to a suggestion by John B. in his post dated 11 May, I brought up
“The Dazzling Dark" by John-Wren-Lewis on the web.
In this article Lewis, a hard-bitten physicist, describes what is commonly
called a Near Death Experience, only his was quite different from others
you've probably read about. Rather than dwell on the differences I simply
want to quote Lewis' description of the “eternal dimension” he witnessed
and see if anyone agrees with me that it comes close to describing
Pirsig's indefinable “Quality.”
Lewis writes:
"It was like having had a cataract taken off my brain, letting me
experience the world and myself properly for the first time--for that lovely
dark radiance seemed to reveal the essence of everything as holy. I felt
like exclaiming, 'Of course! That's absolutely right!' and applauding every
single thing with tears of gratitude--not just . . . the small jar of flowers the
nurse had place by (my) bedside, but also the ominous stains on the bed
sheets, the ancient paint peeling off the walls, the far from hygienic smell
of the toilet, the coughs and groans of the other patients, and even the
traumatized condition of my body. From the recesses of my memory
emerged that statement at the beginning of the book of Genesis about
God observing everything 'he' had made and finding it very good. In the
past I'd treated these words as mere romantic poetry, referring only to
conventionally grand things like sunsets and conveniently ignoring what
ordinary human consciousness calls illness or ugliness. Now all the
judgement of goodness or badness which the human mind necessarily
has to make in its activities along the line of time were contextualized in
the perspective of that other dimension I can only call eternity, which
loves all the productions of time regardless."
It's hard to imagine that ethnic cleansing is "loved" in the larger
perspective of the "dazzling dark" Lewis describes, but that seems to the
message he and others who have had mystic revelations bring back to
us. Pirsig's metaphysics starts out with the same proposition it seems to
me, but quickly brings us back to our practical "line of time" mode with
his Dynamic-static split and death struggles between competing levels of
good.
Anyway, I join John B. in recommending this article to you. It's not often
a scientist admits to experiencing amazing grace.
Platt
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