> DMB replies to jc's comments on THE ULTIMATE GOAL.
> (Pssst. Roger, maybe you'd like to comment on these issues too? Seems
> relevent to our quote wars, no?)
>
> JC HAD WRITTEN...
> I'm not sure I agree with "the ultimate goal is to transcend all that
> in
> favor of Dynamism". Maybe I can expand on it a bit.
>
> We always bring every bit of our consciousness/enlightenment into SOMe
> sort
> of static order that blends with the rest of our brains... I can't see
> how
> pure dynamism is even possible. I certainly can't conceptualize it!
>
> DMB SAYS
> Right. I think Pirsig's "analogies upon analogies" idea is much like
> your "static order that blends with the rest of our brains". The
> essential idea being, i think, that our consciousness and
> understanding grows and evolves, but only on the basis of what is
> already present. Even new levels of consciousness must be this way.
> Our instincts and prejudices don't disappear just because the
> intellect can and should keep them in check. In works within the
> levels and within individual "minds" too. One can only understand a
> new concept in terms of one's present concepts. How could it be
> otherwise? But all of this is about static patterns. DQ isn't about
> that. Since concepts are static patterns of intellectual quality, and
> DQ is beyond all static patterns, then DQ is beyond conceptualization.
> BUT...we know what it is NOT, as you mapped out for us so well.
>
> And there is the matter of actual experience that cannot be
> conceptualized. That is to say, the experience itself was beyond
> concepts, but that doesn't mean you can't come down from the mountains
> and says to your friends, "I just had the most indescribable
> experience!" and then proceed to try a description in terms everybody
> knows. You could say it was like this or that. It's a real experience,
> and its really beyond static quality, but it doesn't make you
> disappear. It doesn't make you give away all your things to walk the
> earth in search of truth. The mystical experience is very much like
> the ego death described here recently. Wasn't that you? Its like a
> glimpse of the source of reality. And just sneakin-a-peek is enough to
> shift one's entire perspective. (That's the true meaning of being
> "born again".) The mystical experience represents a kind of
> consciousness that cannot be sustained indefinately, its more like,
> well, an experience. Like anything else, they differ in kind and
> degree. It depends where you are and who you are.
>
>
> JC CONTINUES...
> But even taking the successful mystic's word for it, that this is an
> achievable goal, I'd say it takes a special sort of person to be able
> to do
> this. The shamanistic journey beyond rationality and into the realms
> of DQ
> can never be the universal goal of all ordinary members of society.
> Who's
> gonna bake the bread and tend the children? Our very existence is
> dependent upon tight static patterns that keep our hearts beating and
> our
> lungs filled with air. It seems to me the best we can all do is stay
> open
> to the possibility of dynamism beyond intellect and honor those who
> take
> the journey and respect the wisdom they bring back to the intellectual
> realm.
>
> DMB
> The only disagreement I have with your concern for hearts bread and
> children. Your worry is predicated on the false, and un-stated,
> assumption that mystics are hermits who abandon their families, that
> mystics can't bake bread and that mystical union means physical
> destruction. It just ain't so. Pirsig is a mystic as far as I
> understand the word. He rides and sails and writes books with whores
> and movie stars in them. But man does not live by BREAD ALONE. You
> know. The principle that evolution depends on all that has come
> before, that the levels are cumulative in a sense, DOES go along with
> your concerns. I mean, we need bodies and bread and a safe place to
> mature before we transcend it all. The other kinds of encounters with
> DQ are more like madness than bliss. Lila, for example, was awfully
> dynamic, but she was no John Brown, she was no Einstein or DaVinci.
> She was a mess.
>
JC had WRITTEN
> I'm probably overconstruing your term "ultimate goal" and warping it
> in my
> head to mean "goal for members of a society". Is it more of an
> ultimate in
> the same way that the speed of light is? Something one can approach
> but
> never fully realize?
>
>
[David Buchanan]
> Its the hardest thing to accept because it means giving up everything
> that you value. But I think that's the ultimate goal, the ultimate
> measure of a human life. It doesn't mean leaving it all behind though,
> it means bringing DQ into the life. Everyone who has such an
> experience is happy for it, is usually improved by it somehow, and
> many of them are remarkable people. (I'm not making this stuff up.
> There are papers and books and such.) We can't realistically expect
> that every person on the planet should exist at the cutting edge of
> evolution and consciousness. Things don't seem to work like that. But
> at the same time, it seems a sad disappointment everytime the
> potential is unrealized. If every individual is capable, and I think
> that is basically true, then every unexamined life is a tragedy on a
> cosmic scale. Every case of wasted potential is a DRAG on the process
> of evolution. That's why the hero returns from the journey. Sure, he's
> been all the way, but he goes back to help guide those who have been
> left behind. And in the end there is nowhere to go. Bringing DQ into
> the life that is here. Its about evolving well, if one can say that.
>
> Forgive the clumsy - ness. Tough topic. DMB
> .
>
>
>
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