From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Feb 21 2004 - 19:43:06 GMT
Bo, Paul and all:
Bo wrote:
I maintain that religions are social-value-patterened regardless how deep
thinking they surrounds themselves with and how many great "philosophers"
are connected with them. While he (Paul) sees the Upanishads texts as "an
Oriental intellectual level". ....regrettably with backing of some Pirsig
quotes.
dmb replies:
Religion, like everything else, began at the social level and for millions
and millions it still exists at that level, but I don't see any reason why
the topic should be forever trapped there. Deep thinking philosphers at the
social level? No way. I'm definately with Pirsig and Turner on this one. I
think deep thinking philosopher at the social level is a logically
impossibility. A philosopher is a philosopher even if she's philosophizing
about spiritual concerns. The topic or subject matter under consideration
does not determine its level of evolution. Not only does Pirsig say that the
Buddhist and Vendantist philosophies are "one of the profound achievements
of the human mind", he also points out that the Bible is both social and
intellectual in content. He says that the early books like Genesis are
social, whereas the latter books like Paul's letters are intellectual. But
even more importantly, I think that Pirsig has always been interested in
recovering spirituality without having to abandon intellect. We see this in
both ZAMM and LILA....
"Plato is the essential Buddha-seeker who appears again and again in each
generation, moving onward and upward toward the 'one'." ZAMM (P331)
"...Phaedrus was clearly a Platonist by temperment and when the classes
shifted to Plato he was greatly relieved. His Quality and Plato's Good were
so similar that if it hadn't been for some notes Phaedrus left I might have
thought they were identical" (331-2)
"Plato HADN'T tried to destroy ARETE. He had ENCAPSULATED it: made a
permanent fixed idea of of it; he had CONVERTED it to a rigid, immobile
Immortal Truth. ... That was why the Quality Phaedrus had arrived at in the
classroom had seemed so close to Plato's Good. Plato's Good was TAKEN from
the rhetoricians. (P342)
"What Phaedrus has been talking about as Quality, Socrates appears to have
described as the soul, self-moving, the source of all things. There is no
contradiction." (P349)
"The physical order of the universe is also the moral order of the universe.
RTA is both. This was exactly what the MOQ was claiming. It was not a new
idea. It was the oldest idea known to man. This identification of RTA and
ARETE was enormously valuable, Phaedrus thought, because it provided a huge
historical panorama in which the fundamental conflict between static and
Dynamic Quality had been worked out. It answered the question of why ARETE
meant ritual. RTA also meant ritual. But unlike the Greeks, the Hindus in
their many thousands of years of cultural evolution had paid enormous
attention to the conflict between ritual and freedom. Their resolution of
this conflict in the Buddhist and Vedantist philosophies is one of the
profound achievements of the human mind."
Bo wrote:
...the mystical experience may be called experiencing DQ (in moqish) but any
established religion is - as said - social-value-patterned. There is a scale
where the Semitic kind is most conservative (social) to the said Buddhism
but regardless they never cross the line into Intellect. Blurring this line
is to remove all explanatory power from the MOQ.
dmb replies:
Again, I disagree. I think this is another logical impossibility. If DQ is
the central reality of the MOQ and DQ is the mystical reality, the the MOQ
is a mystical metaphysical system. So the MOQ itself is both mystical and
intellectual. This is the most glaring example of religious issues being
treated at the intellectual level. Robert Thurman (Uma's dad) is one scholar
that certainly agrees with Pirsig. He points out that Western intellect is
focused outwardly on the material world. Using our science and technology we
went to the moon and back. But Tibetan Buddhism, he says, has gone just as
far but in an inward direction. He says they have developed a science and
technology of the mind that is equally impressive. They've gone to the moon
and back as well, so to speak. I don't think Pirsig is trying to say that
ALL religion is social. He's trying to make the distinction between social
level moral codes and ritualistic, sectarian religions on the one hand and
intellectual and mystical religions on the other. He's only trying to sort
out the difference between "low grade yelping about God" and the interesting
things that turn up when we "don't take the yelps too literally".
Pirsig in Lila chapter 30:
"The MOQ associates religious mysticism with Dynamic Quality but it would
certainly be a mistake to think that the MOQ endorses the static beliefs of
any particular religious sect. Phaedrus thought sectarian religion was a
static social fallout of DQ and that while some sects had fallen less than
others, none of them told the whole truth."
"He thought about how once this integration occurs and DQ is identified with
religious mysticism it produces an avalanche of information as to what
Dynamic Quality is. A lot of this religious mysticism is just low-grade
"yelping about God" of course, but if you search for the sources of it and
don't take the yelps too literally a lot of interesting things turn up."
Thanks,
dmb
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