Hi Phred,
I'm Clark's daughter. This should explain a lot ;)
DaPhred@aol.com wrote:
>... also have had a mystical
> experience like you described. It was about 22 years ago... main preoccupation was partying
> ... had absolutely no education concerning philosophy...
> and had little interest in anything that had to do with religion.
> ... highlighted some of the sentences in the first two chapters with one of those
> yellow felt pens. So, being lazy, I was only reading the highlighted
> sentences.
> Then the strangest thing... As I continued through the book,
> past the two chapters my cousin had highlighted, the yellow highlighted
> sentences continued. I could actually see the new yellow highlights occurring
> as I turned the pages. Also, these new highlighted sentences seemed to hover
> about a quarter of an inch off the page. It was the wierdest thing.
>... I sensed that I was communicating with several "entities" or
> "personalities". They would tell me things like, "Don't worry about learning
> this all now, you have a photographic memory" and then would proceed to talk
> about Arete, Dharma, and Virtue. At times, when I started to get a little
> freaked out, the entities would chastise each other saying "You're confusing
> him!" They would like bicker back and forth to each other. It was kind of
> funny.
Yes, it can be funny, Phred. What I say to you is cool it! Step back
man before you convince yourself of something you really don't want to
believe! This happens to everybody - everybody, that is, with an agile
mind. Do you know what your subconscious is? Can you explain it
rationally? Do you believe in it? Well, I do.
The human mind loves patterns. Your sleeping and waking dreams are
composed of your rational mind's attempts to compose patterns of
undifferentiated experience. We have experiences all the time. Oddly,
most of them go unacknowledged by reason. We can only discern what we
are predisposed to see. It's hard work to overcome these
predispositions, and our rational part can only do it, can only address
those patterns it has been predisposed by culture, habit, training, and
desire to understand. Our minds are powerful, but not in the way you
may think. We can't conjure yellow highlighters on a page. Tell me,
were the marks there when you reread the text later? I didn't think
so.
Recognition is the most powerful force in the world. Sometimes we
attain recognition by study, sometimes by a coming together of any
number of disparate ideas that have been floating around in our
subconscious for years - just waiting for an outlet, a nexus if you
will. Recognition is a function of the rational mind. It occurs at
that point where our conscious logic and subconscious store of
experience intersect. As I said, recognition is the most powerful force
in the world, and, I think, the most misunderstood. A revelation that
comes from without is not a revelation - it's a cheap trick.
Revelation, i.e.. recognition, comes from within and is only available
to you when your rational mind is ready to receive it, to understand
it.
You are unwilling to admit it, but I believe you were ready for Pirsig
when you first read him. Your subconscious mind was busily constructing
patterns of the words on the page as you read and, most importantly,
your rational logical mind was ready, was primed to accept what you
saw. To me, this just verifies the truth inherent in Pirsig's
thoughts. He had stumbled upon a Truth. A truth that was self-evident
for those predisposed to see. Zen didn't have all the answers, but he
was on the right track, asking the right questions. You know, the ones
we all have. He was bravely addressing the unease those of us steeped
in Western Civilization have felt all along but been unable to counter.
I think no one before Pirsig has had the nerve to question authority in
the way he has. To those ready to hear, Pirsig's ideas are a relief, a
release, a breaking away from the dogmatism that infects Western
thought.
Through Pirsig it is possible to understand that there is another way to
understand our Universe and our place in it without resorting to
external influences. With him, we can discover that God is not only
dead, but never existed in the first place! We don't need to believe in
"higher powers", mysticism, or Martians to explain why we are here, how
we arrived, or where we are going. We are free, and the Universe is a
much lovelier, more rational, more moral, more patterned place than ever
imagined. Imagine the beauty of discovering that morals are not just
something handed down to us in a church, but are the fundamental
ground-stuff of the world! They belong to no one. No particular group,
faith, or dogma can lay claim to them. The morals belong to us all,
live in us all, are waiting to find expression in us all.
Don't mean to come down so hard on you, Phred, just don't want to see
you drift off onto the wrong track with this.
Mary ;)
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:04 BST