Hi Scott, Bo, John "The Lurker" B, and now Platt [ in his Sunday, July 28,
2002 9:34 AM] Post has joined In!!!
This is great! Now I can run to my shrink and tell her that my feeling's of
paranoia are justified!! All the truly important people in the known
universe are all against me!!!! Okay...enough with my silly humor on to the
show....
I'm cutting up Scott's post since I have addressed some of those issues in
later posts. We are still engaged in hashing out that stuff. Here I want
to focus on mystics, mystical union and the mystics morning after the orgasm
of that union.
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott R <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 3:00 PM
Subject: Re: MD Consciousness
> [Scott:] Again, you've misunderstood what I said. What the Eastern
> philosophers were SAYING was as you describe. What I am saying is that
> all this SAYING is in SOT-mode, so to speak. After all, I can now say
> "Everything is One", but I am now partaking in a SOT
> framework. They weren't explaining anything away. They were saying that
> the SOT mind is an illusory mind (maya). But to say it they had to be in
> a SOT framework, since that is what their audience is in.
>
> Now to the business at hand, which is to make it clearer what position I
> hold with respect to q-intellect, that is, intellect as the fourth
> level, freed from the social and biological. And how that fits in with
> mysticism.
>
> First, SOLAQI. I take this as given, that Subject/Object Logic is
> Q-Intellect, but see this as a definition. We are (from a mystical point
> of view) stuck in the four levels, and in particular our intellect is
> unavoidably dualist: I think ABOUT things, because that is how all my
> experience is structured. This is, in philosophy, known as the
> intentional stance. We can't, except in moments of "mystical experience"
> get above it. We CAN, however, descend below it, and we do that all the
> time, when we let our thinking be driven by social and biological
> concerns, again, what the Buddhists call monkey-mind.
>
> This is why I (and Bo, I believe) insist on the high value of SOT: it is
> training in detachment. (And why I argued (to Rog) that SOT in service
> to society is less important than SOT in service to itself, so to speak,
> or maybe one should say in service to the individual in fostering
> detachment.)
>
> Now to the question: how does q-intellect relate to mystical
> understanding? As follows:
>
> 1. The mystics emphasize that Ultimate Reality (by whatever name) is
> ineffable, that SOT can never describe or explain it, and that SOT (or
> more generally, dualism) is maya. I take this as given, and have never
> said otherwise.
>
> 2. What SOT can do is examine itself, however, and in doing so it finds
> the paradoxes that SOM engenders. This is, then, support for the
> mystical claim that SOT is maya, and it is to strengthen our awareness
> of this paradoxicality that I urge the q-intellectual activity of
> deconstruction. The more we weaken our unthinking BELIEF in dualism, the
> better (the more detached we become). Among these beliefs -- the main
> one -- is the belief in an independent objective reality. And this is
> why I continually recommend Barfield's book, since it shows how this
> strict S/O dualism has come about within historical time. It came about
> with and in correlation to the development of SOT. It also points to the
> transcendence of SOT, that SOT is a stage, albeit a necessary one, in
> the evolution of consciousness to what he calls "final participation".
>
> 3. The mystics (the better ones, in my opinion) also emphasize that
> "nirvana is samsara". I understand this to mean, in part, that while SOT
> and observable existence in general are maya, we make a mistake in
> thinking that SOT should just go away. Patterns are "static patterns of
> value" and the creation of patterns is Good. That includes patterns of
> q-intellect. We do have to learn that patterns of q-intellect, like all
> patterns, are not Ultimately Real, and that all patterns are contingent,
> but we make a fundamental mistake in denigrating the intellect in favor
> of non-intellectual patterns, and that is why I dislike the phrase "the
> map is not the territory". It tends to reinforce the pre/trans fallacy,
> that if we could only stop thinking we would restore the experience of
> DQ "out there" as was the case in "original participation". Rather we
> can learn to experience DQ in our thinking (N.B., this is not something
> we can "learn" in the way we learn, say, science or mathematics. Rather
> it is itself a meditative technique, and we "learn" it by detaching the
> ego from our thinking. Again, I mention the books of Georg Kuhlewind who
> goes into this in depth. To experience DQ in thinking (my MOQ
> translation) implies transcendence of duality.)
>
> So, in sum, I regard all that concern with words to be beside the point.
> We need to get beyond the language/reality distinction. Our words are
> objects like any other, but what is more important is to realize that
> ALL objects are words: DQ speaking to us, or Quality speaking to itself
> in the form of humans (and no doubt in many other ways). Here I'm
> getting mythological, so I'd better stop.
>
GARY'S RESPONSE: Great stuff from Scott. Now, I too am a mystic, I had
traveled the path through the Intellect, which if I recall correctly from
Lawrence LeShan's book : How to Meditate, is one of the paths that Buddhism
(Hinduism?) acknowledges is the path meditation to the Divine. I confess I
have trouble meditating in the usual manners, focusing on one's breath,
focusing on silence, etc, all that is hard for me. Detachment does not come
easy. My mishegass [Yiddish word for crazy / insane] method is to read in
at top speed lots and lots of words, ride the waves of ideas and emotions &
feeling found therein. Let it all churn around and then after awhile ....Ta
da ! Enlightenment! In an orgasmic moment of ejaculation-- ideas come
spewing out!!! [The sexual metaphors are not meant to be offensive.
Jewish Kabbalah believes that these metaphors are appropriate, though the
Rabbis were not as blatant as I in my language. The Song of Song in the
Hebrew Bible is filled with such sexual language concerning the mystic
yearning after union with the Beloved, the Divine, and of course
vice-a-versa!! This sexual language stuff is thus part of Christian
mysticism and comes honestly and not through the Bible to Hindus. Hey they
got Shakti and Shiva doing it all the time! They got pictures all we
Rabbi's got is mere words. (My humor keeps getting in here...)]
Anyway, I had a vision/revelation/epiphany when I was young 8? 12? , and I
have been 'high' from that moment on! It set me off on my grail-quest. To
explicate the nature of human reality. My epiphany was the phrase; People
shape, and are shaped by, ideas. So, I am a junior grade mystic. I
haven't honestly earned any merit badges in any of the mystic
skills/techniques of meditation of detachment. But, hey I've read a whole
bunch! So, onward, ever onward pilgrims...
So, what is going on with these mystics? They go off and have sex with the
Divine and come back the next morning telling us all that they got It! They
have certainty. They gives us all these wonderful maps and words which they
claim [as do I, I too confess] that is the result of that blissful
intercourse and emptying union. They tell us that their maps are pure and
without bias, since they come directly from that intercourse experience with
the Divine.
Unfortunately, to get to the punch line first, they are self-deceived. They
think their wisdom derived from that Union wasn't tainted with mere
mortal/human stuff. They don't remember putting on any human made condoms
to meditate and interfere with the direct contact with the Divine! So why
do I say that were using condoms? It all comes down to that important
principle of human reality: people shape, and are shaped by, ideas!
Let's back up and examine this mystical union step by step. As I said in my
prior post to Scott today, the mind/brain is using similar process here to
handle the mystical union as it does to handle the ordinary stuff, the
profane intercourse with sense data.
It is important to realize that somethings can be said concerning mysticism
is universal but other stuff is culturally and individually contextual.
What is universal is the means / methods to get to mystical insight:
Meditation and/or chemical substances [mushrooms, herbs, etc.] All the
cultures and the religions across the globe have been saying the same stuff
about how to have sex with the Divine/ the methods of meditation and prayer.
What is not universal is the results of waking up the morning after the sex.
Once the mystic leaves that moment of ecstasy and goes back into his/her
mind/body, this begins the contextual stuff which is not universal and is
evidence of my People shape....etc principles!!
Actual this People shape... stuff the Rabbis figured out 1000's of years
ago. They wrote about it in The Babylonian Talmud. An Encyclopedic huge
collection which started out oral and got written down. The Talmud stuff's
first phase got finished in 200 CE, meaning it started around the beginning
of this Common Era. The Rabbi's were busy making Talmud when the Jesus
Jewish movement began take their steps to invent Christianity. The Talmud
gets 'finished' around 600 CE.
The Talmudic phrase is "The Torah was written in the language of men." [Now
they didn't mean 'men' as designating male sex, but for the most part the
Talmudic club was an old boys one. There is one or two ? women scholars
quoted in the Talmud, but the most part the early Rabbis' were all men.]
[For the overly anal scholars out there I can even give you the Talmudic
citation, chapter and verse cite.] What does this phrase mean? The Torah,
which is the loose label for the whole of Biblical Canon, is of course the
GREATEST and MOST PROFOUND collection of words coming out of revelation with
the Divine. [The Rabbi's are clearly biased here, overly fond of the home
team!] Now the principle of how Torah was made applies the Rabbis teach to
how all mystical revelation works. The Torah just happens to be the BEST
example of such revelation. [Rah! Rah! Yell those Jewish cheerleaders!]
So, revelation is transmitted in the language of humans! That is what the
phrase means. And by the term language the Rabbis mean the context of the
culture existing at that time of that revelation!! Very sophisticated
stuff! Rabbi Moses Maimonides in his work circa 1190 CE "The Guide For the
Perplexed" [It's too bad copy right laws don't apply. He could have
trademarked that book's title and made a fortune by all those guys after him
who infringed on his trademark phrase!] Rabbi Maimonides uses this
principle of "Torah was written in the language of men" to explain why the
Torah talks about worship via temple sacrifice. Since at the time of Torah
every other culture was doing the sacrificial thing, YHVH [aka God] couldn't
have expected the early Hebrews to get the idea of worshipping God without
temple sacrifice. It would not have made sense to them. Their culture
wasn't ready for pray without slicing, dicing and barbequing lambs & birds
and such. Hence the Torah had all that stuff which was appropriate to the
language / culture of the listener/reader of Torah at the time of the
revelation. The mystic message was made appropriate to the audience at the
time of first encountering the text.
That's very sophisticated thinking back then going on their. And it is a
brief summary of the process of People, shape and are shaped by, ideas.
Back to the Mystics. As I said, in general all the how to manuals are
universal. So, the mystic goes on a couple of dates with the Divine, brings
Her/Him flowers, flatters Her with praises, hymns, prayers, whatever. All
with the goal and getting in bed with Her. [Us humans, all we think about
is sex!] The mystics start off universal and the sexual orgasmic union with
the divine is universally described in similar language by all the mystics.
That is if they are the kind to kiss and tell. For the most part a Jewish
mystic sounds a lot like a Hindu when they talk about the moment of union.
Hey, we all humans got the same biology/mind processing stuff.
[Unfortunately size doesn't matter with the Divine. S/He sleeps around
indiscriminately with anyone! If your willing to put out and make the
effort, then you can have a tumble in the hay with the Divine. Be you
Guttman Siddhartha or Adolf Hitler.]
But mysticism, the product of that Divine union is totally contextual.
Totally particular to the specific culture and individual history of the
participant mystic.
Here is a long cite from Gershom Scholem, a key scholar in the study of
Jewish Mysticism. Here is how he explains why there is no such thing as
universal [non cultural context ] mystical teachings. [The intro is more of
me babbling, I took this from an essay I wrote for elsewhere.]
All peoples developed a tradition with an outer form and an inner form. The
outer is what is called religion the inner is what is called mysticism.
Let me turn to the words of Gershom Scholem, from pg 3+ of his book Major
Trends in Jewish Mysticism, the paperback Schocken edition:
" What is Jewish mysticism? What precisely is meant by this term? Is there
such a thing, and if so, what distinguishes it from other kinds of mystical
experience? In order to be able to give an answer to this question, if only
an incomplete one, it will be necessary to recall what we know about
mysticism in general. I do not propose to add anything essentially new to
the immense literature which has sprung up around this question during the
past half-century. Some of you may have read the brilliant books written on
this subject by Evelyn Underhill and Dr. Rufus Jones.[pg. 3.]Dr. Rufus
Jones, in his excellent "Studies in Mystical Religion" defines his subject
as follows: "I shall use the word to express the type of religion which puts
the emphasis on immediate awareness of relation with God, on direct and
intimate consciousness of the Divine Presence." Thomas Aquinas briefly
defines mysticism as cognitio dei experimentalis, as the knowledge of God
through experience..For it must be said that this act of personal
experience, the systematic investigation and interpretation of which forms
the task of all mystical speculation, is of a highly contradictory and even
paradoxical nature. Certainly this is true of all attempts to describe it
in words and perhaps, where there are no longer words, of the act itself.
What kind of direct relation can there be between the Creator and His
creature, between the finite and the infinite; and how can words express an
experience for which there is no adequate simile in this finite world of
man?.[ pg. 4] This leads us to a further consideration: it would be a
mistake to assume that the whole of what we call mysticism is identical with
that personal experience which is realized in the state of ecstasy or
ecstatic meditation. Mysticism, as an historical phenomenon, comprises much
more than this experience, which lies at its root. There is a danger in
relying too much on purely speculative definitions of the term. The point I
should like to make is this--that there is no such thing as mysticism in the
abstract, that is to say, a phenomenon or experience which has no particular
relation to other religious phenomena." [this is my "People shape, and are
shaped by, ideas" in action!] "There is no mysticism as such, there is only
the mysticism of a particular religious system, Christian, Islamic, Jewish
mysticism and so for. That there remains a common characteristic it would
be absurd to deny, and it is this element which is brought out in the
comparative analysis of particular mystical experiences. But only in our
days [these lectures were first given in 1945] has the belief gained ground
that there is such a thing as an abstract mystical religion. One reason for
this wide-spread belief may be found in the pantheistic trend which, for the
past century, has exercised a much greater influence on religious thought
than ever before. Its influence can be traced in the manifold attempts to
abandon the fixed forms of dogmatic and institutional religion in Favour of
some sort of universal religion. For the same reason the various historical
aspects of religious mysticism are often treated as corrupted forms of an,
as it were, chemically pure mysticism which is thought of as not bound to
any particular religion..as Evelyn Underhill has rightly pointed out, the
prevailing conception of the mystic as a religious anarchist who owes no
allegiance to his religion finds little support in fact. History rather
shows that the great mystics were faithful adherents of the greater
religions. Jewish mysticism, no less than its Greek or Christian
counterparts, presents itself as a totality of concrete historical
phenomena. Let us, therefore, pause to consider for a moment the conditions
and circumstances under which mysticism arises in the historical development
of religion and particularly in that of the great monotheistic systems. The
definitions of the term mysticism.lead only too easily to the conclusion
that all religion in the last resort is based on mysticism;.For is not
religion unthinkable without an 'immediate awareness of relation with God?'
That way lies an interminable dispute about words. The fact is nobody
seriously thinks of applying the term mysticism to the classic
manifestations of the great religions. [pg. 6] .The point which I would
like to make first of all is this: Mysticism is a definite stage in the
historical development of religion and makes its appearance under certain
well-defined conditions. It is connected with, and inseparable from a
certain stage of the religious consciousness. "[pg. 7]"
Mystical union is a universal human activity. The results of that union,
mysticism is a culturally contextual set of words and maps. Franklin
Merrell-Wolff was busying studying Hinduism on his sought after encounter
with the Divine. Is it not surprising that he came back the morning after
with a Hindu vision? Hey it would be really weird, and actually something
utterly unprecedented in the history of the planet, if having gone into bed
with the Divine as a Hindu, he Wolff woke up in bed to find that he had been
having sex with Odin the Norse god, or Ahura Mazda of Persia, or
Tezcatlipoca of Meso-America. All mystics have a revelation that is
appropriate to their experience prior to the mystic union!!! No human has
ever had a different event. All mystics experienced that union in metaphors
that were fixed by their culture and individual history! You can spend
your life in futile search of any contradictory evidence in the cumulated
annals of human records. People/mystics were shaped by the ideas in their
heads! The mystic union was not a unmediated union with the Divine! The
certainty of pure Truth that they come back with is utterly biased by the
ideas/beliefs/metaphors/maps already existing in their minds before the
union!!!
Appeal to mystic union as a means to get pure un-bias knowledge and wisdom
will not work! The Union does dissolves the separation of observer with the
observe. We do become one with the Infinite! But that experience is shaped
and mediated as is all data entering our mind/body! Just as we process
photons and we end up perceiving a bird landing on a tree, so do we process
the mystical union. We shape it in accordance with the stuff, the culture,
the metaphors, what-have-you that existed in our minds before we had the
union. We were wearing a condom all the time and we didn't know it!!! We
never, and there has never been a mystic who didn't tell of his revelation
in terms of his collective or personal culture.
Thus mystic union is not a means to escape the map/territory word/thing
observer/observed divide. It to, as all human activities are, shaped by
that divide. It is inherent in the nature of being human. No escape.
There has never been any evidence of escaping that cultural context. If it
did not exist then a Christian mystic would write that he say Tezcatlipoca
or Odin. Or a Hindu would say he saw Atum the Egyptian sun god, i.e. that
the mystic saw in metaphors totally outside the mystics cultural/personal
experience.
Scott: So, in sum, I regard all that concern with words to be beside the
point.
> We need to get beyond the language/reality distinction. Our words are
> objects like any other, but what is more important is to realize that
> ALL objects are words: DQ speaking to us, or Quality speaking to itself
> in the form of humans (and no doubt in many other ways). Here I'm
> getting mythological, so I'd better stop.
But we can't Scott. All that concern with words is the first point. Not
the whole point but the place to start. So, Hope this essay puts an end to
using mystical union as a mean to escape the map/territory divide. It just
does not happen. All that stuff you, Scott, wrote about Hindu mystical maps
as describing the True nature of reality, as if it was not mediated by the
fact of human maps/word contextual occurrences, is just not so. All we got
is human words. Humans making maps of a non-human territory. Those maps
may be useful and accurate but that is because they have a structure similar
to the structure of reality. But we can only hope that this is so. 100%
certainty is impossible this side of the divide. The importance of
recoginizing the inescapable fact of this divide for us humans is it bring
humility and a possiblity that we made inaccurate and/or incomplete maps.
But of course, I have True knowledge and wisdom...
Happy in my self delusions, but working hard to bring clarity,
Gary
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