LS Soul in the MOQ

From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jul 04 1999 - 00:00:36 BST


Does Lila have Quality? Does James Brown have soul? Oh, we're not
talking about that kind of soul, are we?

Its only the third day of the month and we already have disagreement.
Cool.
Unlike David T., I was thinking that soul and self are pretty much the
same thing. I mean the soul of a "thing" is its truest, most essential
nature, no? I'm operating on the idea that the soul of a person is his
or her REAL self, the very center of being.

I'd like to respond to Mr. Beasley's call to all "experiental mystics",
but I'm really not sure what assertion he wishes such people to
"challange". Perhaps this will become more clear to me as this month's
debate unfolds. But I certainly don't think Pirsig makes the case that
we are merely "the playthings of static quality", as John puts it. And I
definitely don't think the MOQ is soul-less. The amoral scientific idea
that we are mere functions in meme and gene machines is very far from
Pirsig's view and is hardly comparable to the MOQ.

"Soul" is a word with nearly as much theological baggage as the word
"righteousness". But I did not submit a topic and did not vote, so
there's no room for me to complain.

Back in ancient Greece the word they used for "soul" is more accurately
translated as "psyche", which I like a lot more. The soul's ability to
"transmigrate" to another body was a belief held by almost everyone in
the fifth century B.C.. I believe it was Pythagoras who used the phrase
"transmigration of the soul" to describe what we might think of as
reincarnation. But this seems to be a life-after-death issue and sheds
only a little light on the issue of soul and self in the MOQ. But it
clearly underscores the idea that we are not just bodies.

In checking a contemporary dictionary for definitions of self, I had to
go to the third definition of the third entry to get a satisfactory
answer for our purposes.

"noun. the union of elements (as body, emotions, thoughts and
sensations) that constitute the individuality and identity of a person."

Its not designed to accomodate the MOQ, but its not too bad. One can see
all the static patterns in the "elements" listed parenthetically.

Dictionary definitions of "soul" were much better than I expected to
find.

1. the immaterial essence, animating principle or actuating cause of a
life.
2. the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, or the universe.
3. a person's total self.

Again, these definitions aren't built for the MOQ, but they're not too
bad.

Couldn't the "immaterial essence" be Quality itself. Quality is
"embodied in human beings," (and) "the universe". Atman and Bhraman are
"essentially" the same, different kinds of the same Quality. And isn't
it the particular vortex of patterns that constitute each person's
individuality exactly what we mean when we say "a person's total self".
These SOM dictionary definitions are little clumsy, but not totally
alien to the MOQ.

I think Pirsig says that "I" and "he" are fictions only as they are
envisioned in SOM. One's identity is re-imagined in the MOQ just as
"substance" itself is re-envisioned. In attacking SOM, he goes after
subjects as well as objects. It is in this sense that the "self" is
illusory. That is to say, the self is not what SOM thinks it is. But
don't confuse illusory with hallucinatory. SOM is misleading as to the
true nature of self, but that doesn't mean that the self has no reality
whatsoever. Its like the difference between a misconception and a
fantasy. SOM thinking misconcieves self, but that doesn't make the self
a baseless fantasy.

The patterns that Pirsig described as "larger than Chris and myself, and
related us in ways that neither of us understood completely" must be the
Quality that has them both. I am reminded of the ancient Greek word for
"MANKIND". It had a kind of Platonic connotation and meant "the total
image of Man" rather than simply "all people" or "collective humanity".
The "anthropos" is kind of like one of Plato's ideal forms. It was
imagined as a perfect representation of everything that any person could
ever be even if they were to live a thousand different lives.
The anthropos is much larger than any one individual life could ever be.
We are all destined to play out certain roles depending on the specific
form and context of our lives. The anthropos is both husband and wife,
although very few of us ever get to be both in a single lifetime. The
anthropos is parent and child simultaneously, while our finite existence
in time requires us to take on these roles in the appropriate stages of
life. The anthropos is Prince and pauper, sinner and saint, virgin and
whore, hero and monster. Each individual life is a particualr finite
inflection of the larger anthropos. We all participate in the anthropos
and "select" from it to inform our existence. This is very much like the
way cultures are "selected" out of the mythos. Maybe it is even more
accurate to say they are both part of the same selection process. Of
course, I don't "completely understand it" any better than Chris or
Robert Pirsig did. Its bigger than all of us.

Alan Watts said the sadest thing in the world is that a person can go to
their grave without ever really knowing who they were. Cultures are
selected out of the mythos and then are thought of as the only reality
just as certain human roles are selected from the anthropos and then
thought of as the person's only identity. We identify with the roles we
play so much that we think we ARE the roles we play. But our souls are
bigger than that. Our true identity is much less mundane than that, much
less restricted that that. Just as Lila was "the end product of three
and a half billion years of the history of the entire world", so are we.
Its a jungle in there. We are a microcosm that can identify with "the
entire history of the world". To know one's true self is to see the face
of god and know that "Thou art that".(Martin Buber?) In our own culture
the Christ says, "I and the father are one". I think that is what all
the mystics, saints and sages have said and I think that is what the MOQ
says.

David B.

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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