From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 23 2003 - 17:30:57 GMT
Platt asked:
What do you make of Pirsig's "Afterward" to ZMM where he ponders his
son's death and writes:
DMB said yesterday:
In addition to the symbolic, intellectual interpretation of life after death
as a reference to the mystical experience, there is death as a literal,
biological event too. The earliest planting cultures could see that new life
sprang from death. They could see new green shoots sticking up out of the
fallen tree trunk and such. This basic motif evolves so that we soon get the
seasonal regicide, as in Fraizer's Golden Bough, etc.. The sacrifice of
God's only son is directly related to the ritual and literal human
sacrifice that we see all over the world. The central American people took
it to the extent that were almost constantly sacrificing people Death
brings life, round and round, that's what the perennial philosophy seems to
say. Life is a bloody and murderous affair.
Today, DMB adds:
Death brings life, round and round. Campbell's HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES
contains a very nice description of the perennial philosophy's view on this.
I thought I'd posted it a year or so ago, but can't find it. The book is
home too, but a paraphrase from memory should express the idea well enough.
All religions essentially say that we emerge out of the ground of being, are
guided and supported by that ground during our period of manifestation and
return to it upon death. One can see this in Christianity, we're created by
God, this life is all about working out a personal relationship with God
and, hopefully, you'll go to heaven and be with God after you die. Pirsig's
ponderings, clearly, are more along the lines of re-incarnation, or
transmigration of the soul. And just to throw a kink into the mix, I'm
fascinated by so-called "near death experiences".
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