From: Phaedrus Wolff (PhaedrusWolff@carolina.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec 30 2004 - 16:05:11 GMT
Hi All,
To keep from interfering with the conversation between Ham and Paul, in
honor of Ham's return, I thought I might reply to this email from back in
the middle of the month;
Ham) -- However, since you folks have discovered Schleiermacher, whose
thoughts on
transcendence have always fascinated me
. . . try substituting Quality for the
words "religion", "religious" and "theology", and I think you'll see what I
mean.
"But what if [Quality] precedes rationality? What if it is[Quality] that
makes thought possible? Then, [Quality] would know no limits; its thought of
transcendence would be its own transgression. What if the [Quality] realm
belonged to the immediate self-conscious, if it were the universal feeling
of absolute dependence? Then, [Quality] would be a thinking that both agrees
and disagrees with Kant. Yes, [Quality] cannot be thought because it comes
before thought and cannot be bound by the limits thought necessarily imposes
on itself in order to think and to know. But at the same time,[Quality]
cannot not be thought, because every thought is incomplete without that
which gives thought to think. As Schleiermacher tells us, thinking is also a
feeling, and feeling is also an action. So the thought that thinks and feels
and acts is the thought rightly named [Quality] . And as long as thought
knows
its limits by acknowledging its dependence, then [Quality] is ensured as the
hidden ontology that secures the place of God [Essence, Source, Creator,
One,
Allah, Nothingness, Being -- Quality]"
(I did the [Quality] replacement for the words "religion", "religious" and
"theology", and added a little at the end to 'God'.)
Chin) -- I'm going to take this a little at a time;
"But what if [Quality] precedes rationality? What if it is[Quality] that
makes thought possible? Then, [Quality] would know no limits; its thought of
transcendence would be its own transgression. . . "
Let's say the thought led to the transcendence;
Let's say a Christian is confused; that Western thought no longer explains
anything from the words that have come from the dialectic truths over the
centuries. In your confusion, and in your faith in God, you decide to sit by
a river, under a tree, and eat one last bowl of rice before going into
prayer to God to reveal Himself to you, and end all this confusion; you will
not eat any of the fruits of the earth to sustain life; you are completely
devoted to your cause as you cannot see yourself living a life separated
from God any longer; your life has no meaning, and death would be better
than living a life with no meaning. Just as the point between life an death
strips you of all these thoughts, the preconceived predjudices you have been
living with, God reveals himself to you -- you have been enlightened -- the
'Thoughts', the 'Words' you once depended on have changed in form to have a
whole new meaning.
What I have just described is the story of the Buddha. This same story can
be changed to reflect the enlightenment of the Native American by stating
that the indian will hang from a tree until this life is about to leave his
body, or in Pirsig in his insanity lost all control over the body, and
bodily functions. The difference might be that Pirsig was not consciously
seeking enlightenment. Enlightenment came from the shock treatments taking
all the culture limitations, including his own culture of one from body and
mind.
In these instances, what came out, was still what went in. The Christian
went in with full faith in God; the Buddha full faith in Nothing; the indian
full faith in the Creator, and Pirsig full faith in Quality. What they came
out with is a better understanding. All they have to convey this better
understanding is words; these same words that have hidden this transcendence
truths from us from the dialectic truths we have built over the centuries;
empty meaningless [or too many meanings] words. These words can only be a
tool to point to the experience; they can't describe it. The MOQ is a map;
words to point to a better understanding. It is no more than a bridge
between East and West and Science and Religion, and only a bridge that
exists at this immediate point in space and time. We can only build the
bridge as more traffic needs, or tear down the bridge with our dialectic
truths; these words that can only point to the experience. The words and
dialectic truths only exist on a lower plane of enlightenment.
It would not be Quality that new its limits, but the words to point at it.
From ZMM;
<Snip>
In the first phase he made no attempt at a rigid, systematic definition of
what he was talking about. This was a happy, fulfilling and creative phase.
It lasted most of the time he taught at the school back in the valley behind
us.
The second phase emerged as a result of normal intellectual criticism of his
lack of definition of what he was talking about. In this phase he made
systematic, rigid statements about what Quality is, and worked out an
enormous hierarchic structure of thought to support them. He literally had
to move heaven and earth to arrive at this systematic understanding and when
he was done felt he'd achieved an explanation of existence and our
consciousness of it better than any that had existed before.
If it was truly a new route over the mountain it's certainly a needed one.
For more than three centuries now the old routes common in this hemisphere
have been undercut and almost washed out by the natural erosion and change
of the shape of the mountain wrought by scientific truth. The early climbers
established paths that were on firm ground with an accessibility that
appealed to all, but today the Western routes are all but closed because of
dogmatic inflexibility in the face of change. To doubt the literal meaning
of the words of Jesus or Moses incurs hostility from most people, but it's
just a fact that if Jesus or Moses were to appear today, unidentified, with
the same message he spoke many years ago, his mental stability would be
challenged. This isn't because what Jesus or Moses said was untrue or
because modern society is in error but simply because the route they chose
to reveal to others has lost relevance and comprehensibility. "Heaven above"
fades from meaning when space-age consciousness asks, Where is "above"? But
the fact that the old routes have tended, because of language rigidity, to
lose their everyday meaning and become almost closed doesn't mean that the
mountain is no longer there. It's there and will be there as long as
consciousness exists.
</Snip>
What you think?
Chin
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