From: Mari (mld2001@adelphia.net)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 14:18:57 GMT
Hi Platt, Sam, All,
Mari asked:
>
> > Can you talk about your "mystical experience": what it is/was, when it
> > happened and how it effected your life. Did it change your thinking?
etc.
> If
> > anyone else has had what they believe to be a "mystical experience" i
> would
> > like to hear the details about them as well.
Sam wrote back:
> Can I ask why you want to know? I don't think there's a lot I would want
to
> add, given everything else that I've said about this in my discussions
with
> David.
Mari responds:
Yes you can ask why i want to know and i'll do my best to
answer your question. Hopefully i'll be able to connect all the dots in such
a way that a different picture will emerge for further discussion and
consideration(s).
In my first post of 23 Nov 02 i said:
So what exactly IS "mystical experience"?
peyote? near death experience? out of body experience? prayer? meditation?
other? God?
Has anyone in this discussion group had one or more "mystical experience"?
What were/are the consequences of the "ME"
Did Pirsig or Phaedrus have the peyote experience in Lila?
Is it possible to write/talk (with authority) about "ME" if one has never
had one?
On page 45 in Lila Pheadrus says: " Most of the rest of the whole tray of
slips, many more than a thousand of them before him here, was a >direct<
growth from this one original insight" ( i take this to mean that
everything was effected by "insight" and that the insight happened as a
result of his partisipation in the ceremony)
On page 42 Pheadrus says: "He couldn't figure out what it was. Was the
peyote just making him sentimental? Sentimentality is a narrowing of
experience to the emotionally familiar. But this was something new opening
up. There was a contradiction here. It was something new opening up that
gave the sentimental feeling one might get from his childhood home when he
sees a tree he once climbed or swing he used to play on. A feeling of coming
home. Coming home to some place one had never been before" (how can one come
'home' to a place one has never been before? what is "home") (does metaphor
allow one to "see" things in ways that otherwise may not be see-able?) ( are
there some things that can only be "seen" "understood" via metaphor )
On Page 41 Pheadrus says:
"The physical distance to that teepee from the highway was about two hundred
yards, but cultrally the distance bridged with Dusenberry that night was
more like thousands of years. PHEADRUS COULDN'T HAVE GONE THE DISTANCE
WITHOUT THE PEYOTE" He would have just sat there "observing" all this
"objectively" like a well trained anthropology student. But the peyote
prevented that. He didn't observe, he partisipated exactly as Dusenberry had
intended we should do"
(what does it mean that he "couldn't have gone the distance without the
peyote"?) ( if he just "observed" "objectively" then he would have been
employing SOM (IMO) but being "prevented" from doing that by the peyote
opened him up to and allowed him to experience/practice/partisipate in MoQ
is my interpretation)
Again in my first post i asked: "Did Pirsig or Phaedrus have the peyote
experience in Lila?" and "Is it possible to write/talk (with authority)
about "ME" if one has never
had one?"
Somewhere Pirsig discuss's to a greater or lesser degree (lesser IMHO) the
relationship between him and Pheadrus but in my opinion and experience the
line between author and character(s) is blurry at best....blurry can also
mean that there is virtually no difference at all; they are one and the
same. If there is no connection between the two how do we discern the
relevance of what is being said? What good are the quotes and more
importanly the message if the position gets taken that "it's only fiction"
or "Pheadrus is not a real person".
Starting with ZMM i thought that Pirsig had had extra-ordinary experiences
in his life that seeped through into the story. What exactly those
experiences were i wasn't sure but in the 70's when i first read ZMM i just
assumed that he had taken drugs, probably LSD. Has Pirsig ever admitted to
experimentation with drugs? i don't know. Whether or not it matters is up
for discussion. But i do think there is a connection and relevance to fourth
level understanding and perhaps beyond. i don't think it's likely that
someone can have a "mystical experience" and come back from it
uneffected/affected. That said i still don't know what falls into the
category of "mystical experience" ( drugs, meditation, prayer, near death,
out of body, other???) and is it "ME" fourth level or something else?
i have not explored the link you enclosed in your post but am looking
forward to checking it out later today. And i am not familiar with your
conversation with David on this matter. Can you tell me when it was so i can
go back and read it?
Thanks for considering these questions.
M
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