From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Aug 22 2004 - 23:21:15 BST
Dan, Scott and all MOQers:
dmb had said:
As Wilber puts it, a person with no ego is not a saint, but is a psychotic.
The mystic has not abandoned the ego or the intellect entirely. Its just
that she no longer identifies with her ego. Intellect then becomes
transparent, so to speak.
Dan asked:
Please tell me where Wilber says this. I'd like to read it within context.
dmb answers:
In "THE ESSENTIAL KEN WILBER" there is a chapter titled, "Egolessness". It
begins...
"Precisely because the ego, the soul, and the Self can all be present
simultaneously, we can better understand the real meaning of 'egolessness',
a notion that has caused an inordinate amount of confusion. But egolessness
does not mean the absence of a functional self (that's a psychotic, not a
sage); it means that one is no longer exclusively identified with that self.
One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of 'egoless' is that
people want their 'egoless sages' to fulfill all their fantasies of
'saintly' or 'spiritual', which usually means dead from the neck down,
without fleshy wants or desies, gently smiling all the time. All of the
things that people typically have trouble with - money, food, sex,
relationships, desire - they want their saints to be without. 'Egoless
sages' are 'above all that', is what people want. Talking heads is what they
want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser instincts,
drives, and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for advice
on how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress it,
deny it.
...But 'egoless' does not mean LESS than personal, it means MORE than
personal. Not personal minus, but personal plus - all the normal personal
qualities, PLUS some transpersonal ones. Think of the great yogis, saints
and sages - from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not
feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers - from bullwhips
in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its
own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them instigated massive
social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. And they did
so, not because they avoided the physical, emotional and mental dimensions
of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they engaged
them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very
foundations."
Dan said:
I thought Robert Pirsig suggested in LILA that a bishop indeed sees a saint
as a psychotic, a dangerous person who can unbalance church business for
centuries. I think RMP identified the saint more with Dynamic Quality, in
that their behavior is unpredictable and erratic.
dmb says:
I know the passage you're refering to here and I think it expresses the same
idea that Wilber explains in the quote above. The Lila quote also points out
the saints and sages can instantly overturn long-standing static systems,
and this is what the Bishop fears, since he is the gaurdian of that static
system.
Dan said:
I would suggest that ego can be seen as one's intellectual self. I think ego
can be identified as well with the internal discursive dialogue that is
constantly telling us about the world and how important we are to it and how
important we are in it. I see the ego as at odds with the social level self,
the one that imitates and conforms. When that internal discursive dialogue
stops a rather dramatic effect takes place which corresponds with the
"death" of the intellect. But it always starts up again, at least in my
experience.
dmb says:
I think we generally agree that shutting down the chatttering mind is part
of the solution, but I disagree with the idea that the ego is "at odds with
the social level self, the one that imitates and conforms" and I'd challenge
you to rethink it. The first thing that leaps to mind is Pirsig's assertion
that 'celebrity' is the central organizing principle of the social level.
(Just as sex is to the biological level.) I think the connection between
celebrity and ego is obvious enough to warrent no further explanation, don't
you? Pirsig's list of particulars seems to support the connection; all the
blue ribbons, promotions up the corporate ladder, all the face-saving of the
Orient, the police and army uniforms of authority and monuments to courage
and greatness and such. He says Homeric literature was written when
celebrity was still the highest static good and the pyramids were built as
celebrity devices. Both of these pre-date the intellect, but are distinctly
marked by the presence of huge egos. Aren't all these celebrity devices
inextricably intertwined with the ego? Even the roles by which we most
usually identify ourselves are social roles. So what do you do? You married?
Got any kids? I think that the intellect is certainly a part of it too, but
less so. With the intellect we can stand apart from our own lives and
examine them in the abstract, compare them to the roles played in other
places and in other times. With the intellect we might even explore the
possibility that intellect is a limited tool and that there is a way to
escape the ego and quiet the mind. I'm guessing the ego doesn't like that
very much and generally doesn't like the intellect very much either. I guess
it depends on who you are and what sorts of things one identifies with, but
generally I'm saying that the ego includes both social and intellectual
static patterns, but is originally and primarily social in nature.
Dan said:
I don't know that one has to return to the marketplace. That seems more a
matter of personal preference. Among other choices, one can choose to return
to a life of service to humanity or one can choose to spend a life in quiet
seclusion. There is no one to judge and no rewards await a person in the
afterlife.
dmb says:
No one to judge? Oh, oh! I'll do it! Pick me! I love to judge people and
things. I've been dying to do some really smart judge stuff too. I wanna cut
a baby in half to resolve a custody dispute or do some wickedly wise shit
like that. Oh, oh pick me!
But seriously, the MOQ offers no specific prescriptions on how to live but I
think we are generally oriented by its assertions. If cultures can be judged
according to their overall contribution to the ongoing evolution of life,
then so can you and I. And choices are important, but mostly they are just
selecting one static thing over another. The trick to serving life, I think,
is to be free and that entails following DQ, of avoiding those static
choices in favor an option nobody offered, if you will.
Thanks,
dmb
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