Hi Platt, & all
----- Original Message -----
From: Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2002 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: MD Shambolic. A review by Squonk. 13.
> Hi Gary:
>
> > If you are a thinking person anywhere on this globe you will come up
> > against the work and writing of Ken Wilber. Which is why his name keeps
> > coming up. Pirsig had a mystical vision which he managed to bring back
> > into a classic system. Wilber may not have had a Buddha-like event to
> > triggered his theories, but he has done his homework. Wilber's writings
> > are part mystical, part psychological systems, part anthropological,
part
> > sociology, part metaphysics. Because Wilber's ideas incorporates all
these
> > fields and endeavors to bring them together. A monumental task. A
> > monumental vision. It is as impressive as Pirsig's work.
>
> You have written an excellent advertisement for Wilber's books. I agree
> with your description of what he has accomplished and his contribution
> to knowledge. What he has left to do is embrace the MOQ. His
> unification of human reality and integral vision will be incomplete until
he
> recognizes and concedes to the centrality of the world's moral order. He
> makes many judgments that "this is better than that" such as, "We
> need to move from pluralistic relativism to universal integralism--we need
> to keep trying to find the One in the Many that is the form of the
> Kosmos itself." But he gives us no reason why we should strive to find
> the One in the Many other than a vague joining with "Spirit." Wilber's
> work is fine, but far from finished until, perhaps in a peak experience
> moment, his vision is illuminated by the MOQ. Do you agree?
>
> Platt
GARY'S RESPONSE: Actual Wilber's notion of the "Spirit" is not all that
vague, but it does lack the same kind of moral core and unifying passion
that Pirsig found in the recognition of the term "Quality". Of all the
terms Pirsig used for his two maps, the one from ZMM and the one from LILA,
his greatest achievement and lasting impact will have been to come out from
his Buddha-like vision holding "Quality".
It recalls to mind a line from Coleridge I came across, (unfortunately
without proper reference) it goes like this: "If a man could pass through
Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his
soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he
awoke--Aye! and what then?" Pirsig/Phaedrus was guided by The
Tao/Spirit/Ayn Sof/ Divine/ (you fill in a word) to venture up to Paradise
and was given a flower, upon awakening Pirsig knew the flowers' name:
Quality. This single realization made all the difference. The evocative
resonance, the affect it has on the Romantic/Yin Soul and Mind, and the
affect it has on the Classic/Yang Soul and Mind, is amazing! To build a
Taoism with Quality as its guiding principle and name is Pirsig's legacy.
The semantic reaction from the word Quality is not the same as Tao or
Spirit. That is absolutely certain.
Wilber came upon the word HOLON and it became his "flower". This word more
so than "Spirit" is his guiding principle, his unifying theme. Wilber is
building a Taoism with Holoarchy as its guiding force. Which means that in
practical terms, Wilber is trying to elucidate a "Integral Vision" for all
human endeavors. By Integral he means the recognition of the forces and
aspects of all Holons. The drive toward individual freedom, the
responsibility of the individual to recognize the needed freedom of the
collective. The needs of the one must be balanced with the needs of the
many. To harmonize the two and not ignore the interior needs of both the
one and the many = these are found under the more familiar terms as "The
Good" and "The Beautiful". The recognition of the voice of Tao/God/Quality
which call to our souls/our link to the Divine. And yet to not ignore the
voice of Tao/God/Quality in the soft breeze of clean air and the lapping of
clean water against the shore, the multitude of voices of the animal
kingdom, etc. our connection to all of the physical realm. To find a way to
balance the Interior needs and drives with the exterior needs and drives.
This is a challenge and Wilber's path.
Pirsig's Quality and Wilber's Integral vision can help us make a world that
resonates with The Good, The True, The Beautiful and The Just. There is not
a good reason to battle between Pirsig and Wilber. This competition, this
"it must be one or the other", is itself a failure brought on by the use of
the two-value logic of Aristotelian systems. The path to sanity is the
recognition that we must go beyond the black VS. white mentality. It is not
a choice of one OR the other. This is a false choice brought on by allowing
ourselves to be trapped by the rules of using A-logic. The choice is: BOTH.
The choice is to blend absence with presence and produce the gradation of
light and dark, and the multitude of colors that really is to be seen all
around us. The hard task is to realize that we have to blend the two. Both
Pirsig and Wilber are tool makers and map makers. We need them both. Guide
your life not only by one. If you listen to the voice of Pirsig, it will
tell you that quality is found in not static limitation but in Dynamic
expansion and integration. Which will lead you to Wilber's Integral vision.
"Yes, an integral vision. And the final result is simply to awaken to who
and what you timelessly are--to awaken to the Spirit that is the actual
author of this integral display.
And there, hidden in the secret cave of the Heart, where God and the Goddess
finally unite, where Emptiness embraces all Forms as the lost and found
Beloved, where Eternity joyously sings the praises of noble Time, where
Shiva uncontrollably swoons for luminescent Skakti, where Ascending and
Descending erotically embrace in the sound of one hand clapping--there
forever in the universe of One Taste, the Kosmos recognizes its own true
nature, self-seen in a tacit recognition that leaves not even a single soul
to tell the amazing tale. " [From the end of A Brief History of Everything]
"And this Earth becomes a blessed being, and every I becomes a God, and
every WE becomes God's sincerest worship, and every IT becomes God's most
gracious temple.
And comes to rest that Godless search, tormented and tormenting. The knot
in the Heart of the Kosmos relaxes to allow its only God, and over-flows the
Spirit ravished and enraptured by the lost and found Beloved. And gone the
Godless destiny of death and desperation, and gone the madness of a life
committed to uncare, and gone the tears and terror of the brutal days and
endless nights where time alone would rule.
And I-I rise to taste the dawn, and find that love alone will shine today.
And the Shinning says: to love it all, and love it madly, and always
endlessly, and ever fiercely, to love without choice and thus enter the All,
to love it mindlessly and thus be the All, embracing the only and radiant
Divine: now as Emptiness, now as Form, together and forever, the Godless
search undone, and love alone will shine today." [From the end of SES]
Waiting and working towards Integral vision of Quality,
Gary
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