I have been following the discussions on ideologies with lot of interest,
including DB’s wonderful presentation of comparing and contrasting regarding
the idea, origin, and evolution of ideologies between Pirsig, Walsby, and
Walford in an earlier post (proto, epi, para, meta dynamic). The concept of
no ideology sounds interesting (meta dynamic = no ideology) and the Indian
Philosopher J. Krishnamurthy (JK) has built an entire school of thought
based on it. I am not sure if JK has been discussed in relation to MOQ.
Anyway what’s interesting to note is the fact that stresses on the fact of
unconditioning one’s mind (erase all past and present ideologies) to unite
humankind -- and humankind should evolve towards No Ideology to realize
that. Whether this can ever be achieved is an open question and time will
tell.
Perhaps if MOQ’rs are interested we can build a discussion on these lines.
Here is JK’s core teaching for starters:
'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organisation,
through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any
philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through
the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his
own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or
introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of
security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas,
beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his
relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our
problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by
the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his
consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all
humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he
acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie
in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his
consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.
Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's pretence
that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without
direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive;
freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step
of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom.
Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and
activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which
are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of
man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a
slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant
conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the
division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the
experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an
illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any
shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep
radical mutation in the mind.
Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all
those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is
there love, which is compassion and intelligence." - JK
Moin Rahman
>From: David Buchanan <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: "'moq_discuss@moq.org'" <moq_discuss@moq.org>
>Subject: MD blindness spillover
>Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 00:12:05 -0700
>
>jc and all philosophers: A few thoughts in response to jc's Monday
>post....
>
>Thanks for spending the time. Your posts were a blast of fresh air. I'll
>have to save some of the biggest and juiciest topics for another time.
>Questions such as "What is evil?" and "What is the connection between
>society and the Tao?" deserve their own threads, a focused and sustained
>conversation of their own.
>
>It does seem that the blindness axiom can be demonstrated in real life,
>such as the conversations with "Dad". In those cases it seems that there
>are two completely seperate conversations going on. I mean, both people
>can use the same language, but that doest meant they're speaking the
>same language, if you know what I mean. But then again, he's probably
>right about steady work. There is also an axiom about not skipping
>levels either.
>
>And the phrase "comparative ideology" correctly describes that 7th stage
>in the hierarchy. I think we agree on the meaning of such an outlook.
>
>But the part of your post I wanted to address with some detail is the
>issue of political labels. As you said, people have their own ideas
>about the meaning of words like "conservative", "liberal" and
>"socialist"..etc. Its easy to confuse specific people or even nations
>with the "ism" itself. For example, the Chinese state is called the
>"People's Republic of China". In what sense is it a Republic? And why
>doesn't the Anerican Republican party suppport them wholeheartedly? See?
>It can become quite absurd. Part of the beauty of Waslby and Pirsig is
>that they both describe this stuff outside of the political arena and
>can call a spade a spade, so to speak.
>
>This comes from the first few pages of chapter 22, page 274 in Bantam's
>HB edition...
>
>"The hurricane of social forces released by the overthrow of society by
>intellect was most strongly felt in Europe, particularly in Germany,
>where the effects of WW1 were most devastating. Communism and socialism,
>programs for intellectual control over society, were confronted by the
>reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social control of
>intellect. Nowhere were the intellectuals more intense in their
>determination to overthrow the old order. Nowhere did the old order
>bocome more intent on finding ways to destroy the excesses of the new
>intellectualism."
>
>"Phaedrus thought that no other historical or political analysis
>explains the enormity of these forces as clearly as does the MOQ. The
>gigantic power of socialism and fascisim, which have overwhelmed this
>century, is explained by a CONFLICT OF LEVELS of evolution. This
>conflict explains the driving force behind Hitler not as an insane
>search for power but as an all-consuming glorification of SOCIAL
>AUTHORITY and HATRED OF INTELLECTUALISM. His anti-Semitism was fueled by
>by anti-intellectualism. His hatred of communists was fueled by
>anti-intellectualism. His exaltation of the German volk was fueled by
>it. His fanatic persecution of any kind of intellectual freedom was
>driven by it." Pirsig then goes on to say a few nice things about FDR's
>NEW DEAL as an attempt at an intellectually centered government, the
>approximate opposite of Hitler's fascism.
>
>You can see that I've added emphasis to "conflict of levels", "social
>authority" and "hatred of intellectualism" because this is exactly what
>I've been trying to discuss and its the reason I posted the hierarchy of
>ideologies. The theory seems to support Pirsig's contention that the
>struggle between social and intellectual values is what drives the
>political conflicts of our time. Perhaps you recall that theory also
>described fascist as one who identifies entirely with his society's
>traditions and values, a conservative shares much in common with the
>fascist, but tends to be less paranoid and hostile. aHe might be willing
>to try something nes, as long as its aim it to preserve those social
>values. The liberal is also essentially happy with the status quo, but
>thinks social vaules themselves could be improved through some changes.
>But then there is a shift, in their words from "static" to "dynamic",
>but from they way it is described we can tell that the shift is from
>social to intellectual values. The socialist, the revolutionary and the
>anarchists identify with the intellectual principles.
>
>(Anarchy in this sense is not chaos and a reverstion to the jungle, but
>a state-less society based on voluntary co-operation. This is too
>utopian for my taste and I think Pirsig's insistence that we can't skip
>any of the levels on the way to intellect would defy such a utopia. But
>the point is that anarchy represents an outlook that is very far removed
>from social values.)
>
>In chapter 24, just as he's getting to the moral codes he says...
>
>"But what the larger intellectual structure of the MOQ makes clear is
>that this political battle of science to free itself form domination by
>social codes was in fact a MORAL battle".
>
>And this time the emphasis on the word "moral" is Pirsig's.
>
>Gotta fly... DMB
>
>
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