Andrea - great posts. You summed up what I believe about
mysticism. It's not necessarily "being" enlightened, but the
belief/trust/knowledge that such a state exists or even just
awareness of other levels of reality.
Marco wrote:
> I think the priests who are in Africa to help people must be a bit
less mystic than the ones living in a monastery. Then, of course,
I don't blame mystics. It's not their fault if people die for hunger,
but also it's not mysticism that cures hunger.
>
David responds:
Really? Are you sure? It couldn't be that the mystic's faith/belief
can affect this dimension of reality? What about prayer? Isn't
that a form of mysticism?
Shalom
David Lind
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
marco wrote:
> Andrea, David(s)
>
>
> ANDREA HAD WRITTEN:
> If the man is a mystic, or a MOQist (:)) he knows nevertheless
that there is *no* future, ie, that the concept of future is
illusory. In
fact, the 'goodness' of a future hospital is nothing that can be
immediately perceived (as MOQ prescribes value to be defined
by immediate perception). In the immediate, the man actually
feels that *collecting money to build a hospital in Africa is the
good thing to do (now)*
>
> MARCO HAD ANSWERED:
> The MOQish is NOT mystic. He does not think that the future is
illusion, he just think that in order to attain (a future) Quality,
one
has to be an artist in the present (remember the motorcycle
maintenance).
>
> ANDREA WROTE:
> Now that's strange. As far as I remember, the only difference
RMP assumes between himself and a mystic is the attempt to
analyze Quality with metaphysical tools. As far as personal
ethics goes, I can't remember any single passage in Lila or
ZAMM that establishes any substantial difference between a
MOQist and a mystic.
>
> PIRSIG HAD WRITTEN IN LILA (my emphasis):
> «What made all this so formidable to Phaedrus was that he
himself had insisted in his book that Quality cannot be defined.
Yet here he was about to define it. Was this some kind of a
sell-out? His mind went over this many times.
>
> A part of it said, "Don't do it. You'll get into nothing but trouble.
You're just going to start up a thousand dumb arguments about
something that was perfectly clear until you came along. You're
going to make ten thousand opponents and zero friends
because the
> moment you open your mouth to say one thing about the
nature of reality you automatically have a whole set of enemies
who've already said reality is something else."
>
> The trouble was, this was only one part of himself talking.
There was another part that kept saying, "Ahh, do it anyway. It's
interesting."
> This was the intellectual part that didn't like undefined things,
and telling it not to define Quality was like telling a fat man to
stay
out of the refrigerator, or an alcoholic to stay out of bars. To the
intellect the process of defining Quality has a compulsive quality
of its own. It produces a certain excitement even though it leaves
a hangover afterward, like too many cigarettes, or a party that
has lasted too long.
>
> Or Lila last night. It isn't anything of lasting beauty; no joy
forever. What would you call it? Degeneracy, he guessed.
WRITING A METAPHYSISCS IS, IN THE STRICTEST MYSTIC
SENSE, A DEGENERATE ACTIVITY.
>
> But the answer to all this, he thought, was that a ruthless,
doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a DEGENERACY OF
ANOTHER SORT. That's the degeneracy fanatics are made of.
Purity, identified, ceases to be purity. Objections to pollution are
a form of pollution. The only person who doesn't pollute the
mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical meanings is a
person who hasn't yet been born—and to whose birth no
thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being
something less pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies
and writing metaphysics is a part of life.
>
> That was all he had to say to the mystic objections to a
Metaphysics of Quality. He next turned to those of logical
positivism.»
>
>
> MARCO:
> Well, Andrea, maybe you are right that the difference RMP
assumes between himself and a mystic is the attempt to analyze
Quality with metaphysical tools. What I don't accept is that *only*.
It's like to say that the *only* difference between an abstainer and
an alcoholic is that the latter drinks whisky. We can well cut it
with the famous razor... and the sentence sounds better: a
MOQist analyzes Quality (Reality)... and this is not *only* at all.
>
> ANDREA WROTE:
> Now *if* there is no "official" difference between MOQist and
mystic morals, and you claim there is one, you must be
expressing a personal belief about one of them. I think you got
the mystics wrong.
>
> MARCO:
> It's true that I don't know a lot about mysticism...IMO 3WD is
right: mystics are very rare. Anyway if I got it wrong, I got it from
your words, in this occasion. Sticking to your example, I've never
said that mystics don't want to save the children. Just that if it
was true what you wrote that "he [the mystic] knows nevertheless
that there is *no* future, ie, that the concept of future is
illusory" ,
well, it means IMO that a mystic attitude will not save the children
of your example. You have reminded me of ZAMM....
>
> PIRSIG HAD WRITTEN (in ZAMM):
> « But one day in the classroom the professor of philosophy
was blithely expounding on the illusory nature of the world for
what seemed the fiftieth time and Phædrus raised his hand and
asked coldly if it was believed that the atomic bombs that had
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illusory. The
professor smiled and said yes. That was the end of the
exchange.
>
> Within the traditions of Indian philosophy that answer may have
been correct, but for Phædrus and for anyone else who reads
newspapers regularly and is concerned with such things as
mass destruction of human beings that answer was hopelessly
inadequate. He left the classroom, left India and gave up ».
>
> MARCO:
> Inadequate.... not wrong. YES! It's not wrong to pray for those
children: it's inadequate. In the end, I think that probably the MOQ
*seems* very mystic from our Western viewpoint... while
probably it is very Down-to-Earth from a mystic viewpoint (if any).
>
>
> ====================
>
> DAVID LIND:
> I don't think you'll find anything in mystic teachings that state
that mystics believe what you imply.
>
> MARCO:
> The phrase "The mystic believes that "there is *no* future, ie,
that the concept of future is illusory", was not mine, but Andrea's.
As said above, I don't know a lot about mysticism, but I do
believe that if you want to save the children (Andrea's example)
you can't go on thinking that future (as well as the past, read the
ZAMM quotes I offered) is illusory...
>
> I think the priests who are in Africa to help people must be a bit
less mystic than the ones living in a monastery. Then, of course,
I don't blame mystics. It's not their fault if people die for hunger,
but also it's not mysticism that cures hunger.
>
>
> Shalom to you too....
>
>
>
>
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