From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 07 2004 - 19:11:04 GMT
I tried to send this yesterday, but I guess its too fat to get through, so
here's the first half....
Sam, the faithful (including Scott), and all MOQers:
"Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics:
Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a
common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language;
that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality
is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic religion, argues that the illusion of
dividedness can be overcome by meditation. The Native American Church argues
that peyote can force feed a mystic undrstanding upon those who are normally
resistant to it, an understanding that Indians had been deriving through
Vision Quests in the past."
"Already in the 8th century B.C., in the Chhandogya Upanisad, the key word
wo such a meditation is announced; TAT TVAM ASI, "Thou art That", or "You
yourself are It!". The final sense of a relgion such as Hinduism or Buddhism
is to bring about in the individual an experience , one way or another, of
his owhn IDENTITY with that mystery that is the mystery of all being. ...it
is the mystery also of many of our own Occidental mystics; and many of thses
have been burned for having said as much. Westward of Iran, in all three of
the great traditions that have co e to us from the Near Eastern zone, namely
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, such concepts are unthinkable and sheeer
heresy. God created the world. Cretor and creture cannot be the same, since,
as Aristotle tells us, A is not-A. Our theology, therefore, begins from the
point of view of wqking consciousness and Aristotelian logic; whereas, on
another level of consciousness - and this, the level to which all religions
must finally refer - the ultimate mystery transecnds the laws of dualistic
logic, causality and space-time. Anyone who says, as Jesus is reported to
have said (John10:30), 'I and the Father are One', is declared in our
tradition to have blasphemed. ...We in our traditon do not recognize the
possibility of such and experience of identity with the ground of one's own
being. What we accent, ratehr, is the achievement and maintenance of a
relationship to a personality concieved to be our Creator. In other words,
ours is a religion of RELATIONSHIP: a, the creature, RELATED to X, the
Creator (aRX). In the Orient, on the other hand, the appropriate formula
would be something more like the simple equation, a=X."
Sam Norton said to dmb:
It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to our having something like a
fruitful conversation is that on the one hand I see Christian mysticism and
Jamesian mysticism as two very different things, and you see the Jamesian
account as an overall description of all sorts of mysticism, including the
Christian one (which I think lies behind your assertion that you are a
Christian mystic. For a Jamesian that might make some sense, but for a
(traditional) Christian, it is nonsense). Are you able to step back from
your own 'tradition' and examine it dispassionately? Can you understand why
I
differ on this?
dmb says:
This explanation helps a little bit, but it feels like you're trying to back
me into a corner rather than genuinely trying to spot the crux of the
matter. Keeping in mind that "Jamesian" is a label you've slapped upon me,
not one I choose for myself. But basically yes, I think his list of
qualities pretty well describes a mystical experience. Wilber and other will
point out that there are serveral levels of mystical experience, but as a
very basic description, it'll do. But again, this is not what I had in mind
while making a case for philosophical mysticism, the perennial philosophy,
which is a much larger thing. The experience itself is at the center of it,
not unlike the way Pirsig's Lila has one as its center, but there much more
to it than that.
I think you've pin-pointed James as the source of this view, but its
actually much broader than than. Its a view made possible only at the
intellectual level, by an examination of widespread accounts. The writers
that excite me most are postmodern in the sense that they are rejecting
premodern tradition and modern materialism for philosophical mysticism. It
can't rightly be condemned for being a SOM thing because the central claim
is that all such dualities are illusory. (Much more about that below)
Sam said to dmb:
When you say above "Your arguments seems to be contrary to the mystical
experience and the insight it provides, that's why I asked. Its not about
authority or credentials, its about experience, first-hand experience" you
are implicitly drawing upon the Jamesian understandings that I reject. So
every time you try and put me into a Jamesian box I will come across as
'evasive' and 'intellectually dishonest' for the simple reason that I reject
the assumptions that you are making in our disagreement. I don't believe
there IS such a thing as THE mystical experience, and I think, specifically,
that a fixation on such experiences is exactly what the Christian tradition
of
mysticism is opposed to (as is the MoQ, so far as I understand it - I think
your perspective turns DQ into an object, very SOM). Now I could be wrong,
but I've not yet had any evidence that you're able to step outside of the
Jamesian framework and provide a higher Quality analysis. This - so it seems
to me - is the major reason why we are 'stuck'.
dmb says:
Thanks. That's almost a straight answer and almost helpful too. There is no
such thing as the mystical experience, eh? That is pretty much an admission
that you have not had one then, right? I mean, how could a person go through
such a thing and NOT believe it can happen? This is definately the source of
our disagreement. And the fact that the christian tradition is opposed to
this idea, is the saddest thing in the world. That exactly the problem.
That's what makes it dead. And its not that I want to put you a Jamesian
box, seems like that's what you're doing to me actually. You don't even have
to believe such a thing is possible, I just want you to use these terms as
Pirsig does for the simple reason that we are otherwise talking about two
entirely different things at the same time, which is confusing and
frustrating. This is not about "accepting assumptions". Its about
understanding the terms in the book we all have in common. Its just about
clarity.
Sam said:
...Pirsig is arguing that you get to DQ through high quality social and
intellectual rituals; in a Christian context, as I originally quoted, "'the
mystics' were not those who had particular states of consciousness, but
those who were able to elucidate the spiritual interpretation of a passage
of scripture, say, or who were faithful participants in the Eucharist".
dmb says:
See, this description of a mystic may be 100% correct in a different
context, but here it conveys almost exactly the opposite meaning. Sure,
Pirsig says DQ can be revealed to social level people by ritualistic
religion, but that these static portrayals usually grow too thick and BLOCK
out the DQ instead. And I have no doubt that this still works for some
people despite the layers of history and dogma. But even then, is it not the
GOAL to evoke a mystical experience through these rituals? That's what
Pirsig means when he says they are a static portrayal, they demonstate the
experience through metaphor, by analogy. Your description of a mystic
strikes me as entirely static, not dynamic at all. This is a source of
confusion here because Pirsig is never using the terms that way and neither
do any other philosophical mystics that I know of.
dmb had said:
You're all indignant like I've stolen your vocabulary, but this is the MOQ
forum and so I think you have to take responsibility for the confusion this
might cause. Its your baggage, not mine, that seems to be getting in the
way. I realize these kinds of terms originate in traditional christianity,
but that is not the context in which we are presently discussing them. We're
talking about faith, theism and mysticism in the context of what Pirsig
says. Let's agree on that, at least, ok?
Sam replied:
Actually, I'd rather not. I think mysticism isn't confined to what Pirsig
says, and as you're quite happy to quote Wilber, I suspect such a constraint
would hamper you more than me. But if I have to accept Pirsig as an oracle
in order to have a conversation with you we may as well stop this now!
dmb says:
AARRGGG! Honestly, you can be so damn think, so obtuse! I'm not asking you
to accept Pirsig's point of view or that Pirsig is the last word on the
topic, I'm just trying to be sure that we're talking about the same thing.
See, we are talking metaphysics here and as you well know, Pirsig is taking
in both East and West. Philosophical mysticism, by its very nature, is not
attached to any particular theology or dogma. Failure to recognize the
difference leads to lots of confusion. You'll disagee, but I think this is
fundamentally a difference between the social and intellectual levels. I
think this may be where you get the impression that I'm Jamesian, whereas it
is just that he and the philosophical mystics are both operating at the
intellectual level....
To be continued....
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Nov 08 2004 - 16:48:50 GMT