From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 28 2004 - 19:36:59 GMT
Sam and all MOQers:
Sam Norton said:
I had been under the impression that it was the experience "as such" that
you were focussed on. ...Perhaps I have been misreading you all this time -
but given the
language that you have always used, I think it understandable. ...Anyhow, if
you agree that truths get revealed in the experience, presumably it's the
truth which is important, not the experience? So we can talk about truth,
now, can't we?
dmb says:
Well, yes, we can talk about the content of the mystical experience to a
certain extent, but we have to realize that we are talking about a
particular kind of truth that is revealed in a way that is quite distinct
from the way intellectual truths are handled. As we may recall from James's
basic description, such an experience is marked by both a noetic quality and
an ineffability at the same time. And let us recall that holding the
assertion that this mystical reality is beyond all words, definitions and
concepts. See? There is an emphasis on the experience itself for this
reason. It just can't be rightly conveyed any other way, see?
But having said all that, I still find it a bit odd that you'd take me to be
saying that mysticism is about the experience "as such". I'm not sure what
that means. Like I sarcastically asked, did you think I was talking about a
warm fuzzy feeling, or what? I don't wish to beat a dead horse, but imagine
an analogy. What if you had asked me to describe the emotional states of
Hamlet and in response I repeatedly told you to read the play. What if I
told you over and over that the only way to understand this character's
feelings and motives, you have to read the play or see a preformance of it.
Would you then presume that Hamlet's interior is to be discovered in the act
of scanning pages with the eye or by sitting in an auditorium? Would you
conclude that the experience of reading and going to the theater "as such"
was the point of my repeated recommendations? This is only an analogy of
course, but I want you to understand how absurd it seems.
Ken Wilber says:
It is only when religion emphasizes its heart and soul and essence - namely
direct mystical experience and transcendental consciousness, which is
disclosed not by the eye of the flesh (give that to science) nor by the eye
of the mind (give that to philosophy) but rather by the eye of contemplation
- that religion can both stand up to modernity and offer something for which
modernity has desperate need: a genuine, verifiable, repeatable injunction
to bring forth the spiritual domain.
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