From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Jan 08 2005 - 04:52:49 GMT
Platt,
Basically, I think Wilber is right, but if you base your understanding of
mysticism on this alone you would get a wrong understanding. After all,
Wilber also talks about the efficacy of Zen practice. Or take Merrell-Wolff
again. Note, from the quotes I gave in my last post, that he is describing
a level of awareness much beyond anything "normal". And he makes other
descriptions -- of experiencing a vast benevolence and joy, and so forth.
Yet he also says:
"The final thought before the "breakthrough" was the very clear realization
that *there was nothing to be attained*. For attainment implied acquisition
and acquisition implied change of content in consciousness. But the goal is
not change of content but divorcement from content. Thus Recognition has
nothing to do with anything that happens. I am already That which I seek,
and therefore, there is nothing to be sought. By the very seeking I hide
Myself from myself. Therefore, abandon the search and expect nothing. This
was the end of the long search. I died, and in the same instant was born
again. Spontaneity took the place of the old self-determined effort. After
that I knew directly the Consciousness possessing the characteristics
reported by the mystics again and again. Instead of the process being
irrational, it is the very apogee of logic. It is reasoned thought carried
to the end with mathematical completeness." [emphasis his]
I think the key is the phrase, "not change of content but divorcement from
content", i.e., detachment. And that is done, as my quotes from
Merrell-Wolff last time indicated, through strengthening the intellect. Or
as you put it: "As I see it, the "principle of rightness" means advancing
moral evolution, which means lifting as many of your thoughts as possible
into the logical intellectual level as opposed to living your life guided
by your irrational emotions or by what society demands of you." (Except,
one can be overly attached to particular forms of intellect as well. As I
hope you got from the last Merrell-Wolff quote, there are times when the
law of contradiction just doesn't apply. But that's another issue.)
From all this, I hope you see why I don't find much value in Pirsig's view
of mysticism, for two reasons. One, he makes too much of "pure experience",
i.e., of experiencing DQ by removing all static patterns. Many mystics
report something like this, but as the Wilber quote shows, that isn't the
goal. One might say that the goal is to experience SQ without attachment to
any particular SQ. The second reason is that Pirsig denigrates intellect
with respect to DQ. Given what Merrell-Wolff and Plotinus say, I think it
better to treat intellect as DQ/SQ, but it needs to be purified, i.e, fully
detached. But intellect is the tool by which one purifies one's intellect
-- meditation is concentrated practice of this.
- Scott
> [Original Message]
> From: Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>; <owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk>
> Date: 1/6/2005 8:58:12 AM
> Subject: Re: MD Universal Moral Standards
>
> Hi Scott, Chin:
>
> I appreciate very much your response to my inquiry regarding the nature
of
> mystic enlightenment. On that subject, I wonder what you gentlemen think
> of the passage I quoted in today's post to Paul from Ken Wilber,
> reproduced below:
>
> (In the following, the Ultimate State of Consciousness was previously
> defined by Wilber as "absolute reality.")
>
> "So what does it mean that you can't enter the Ultimate State of
> Consciousness? What does it mean that never, under any circumstances, at
> any time, through any effort, can you enter the Ultimate State of
> Consciousness? Only that the Ultimate State of Consciousness is already
> fully and completely present. And that means the Ultimate State of
> Consciousness is in no way different from your ordinary state of
> consciousness or from and other state of consciousness that you might
have
> at this or any moment. 'Your ordinary mind, just that is the Tao,' says
> Nansen. Whatever state you have now, regardless of what you think of it
> and regardless of its nature is absolutely It. You therefore cannot enter
> It because you have always been It from the very beginning.
>
> "That the Ultimate State of Consciousness is not a state apart or in any
> way different from the Present State of Consciousness is the point so
many
> people seem to miss. Hence, they misguidedly seek to engineer for
> themselves a 'higher' state of consciousness, radically different from
> their present state of awareness, wherein it is imagined that the Supreme
> Identity can be realized. Some imagine that this particular and exclusive
> 'higher' state of consciousness is connected with specific brain-wave
> patterns, such as predominant amounts of high amplitude alpha waves.
> Others maintain that an individual's neurological system must undergo
> several changes evolving as it were to the point where this 'higher'
state
> of consciousness and finally emerge. Some even believe that physiological
> stress has to be removed through meditative techniques and then the
> 'higher' state will result. But all this chatter totally overlooks the
> inescapable fact that any state of consciousness that can be entered, or
> that emerges after various practices must have a beginning in time, and
> this is not and could never be the times and eternal Ultimate State of
> Consciousness."
>
> Thanks in advance for whatever comments you care to make.
>
> Regards,
> Platt
>
>
>
>
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