******Lithien and the other moq mystics, I hope you'll see this and
respond to the issues.
FINTAN DUNNE: CRAZY IRISHMAN OR MOQ MYSTIC?
Fintan:
You say the squad witnessed your full-blown visionary experience? Wow!
That's got to be a first. You should write that book. But remember
Pirsig spent many years recovering from his experience and many more to
give it shape and meaning. I heard the original manuscript for ZAAMM was
something like a half million pages. Did you, like Pirsig, soil
yourself during the experience?
I object to your use of a dictionary definition of mysticism. I object
not because its wrong, but because its so inadequate.
Imagine your best one-sentence definition of Christianity. And then
imagine showing it to anyone who takes the religion seriously. You think
it would satisfy a devout Christian? Besides,
you dont need the dictionary's one-sentence definition of mysticism,
ZAAMM is a great description of mysticism. Best one I ever read.
Didn't you say you read it 10 or 20 times?
Madness and enlightenment aren't always the same, as you seem to claim.
There are people with diseased and injured brains. Sickness and
enlightenment are clearly two different things, its just that real
mystical experiences are sometimes misunderstood as disease, especially
in the West.
I disagree with your assertion that the MOQ supports creationism.
You say that "time is an illusion, therefore creation could have been
5,000 or 5,000,000,000 years ago". That's just not rational. It's
non-sense. You shift paradigms in mid-thought. Yes, the mystic sees
eternity in a single moment and the veil of illusion is lifted to reveal
infinity, but that doesn't mean that ordinary time can speed up or warp
out enough to evolve Earth's biosphere in 5000 years.You switch from
mystic to fundementalist in the middle of the idea!
And you have "proof" of creationism by "analysis of the physical
world"? It seems like an impossible amount of analyzing? Oh, and not
just the physical world, by analysis of the human body too! Haven't lots
of people been doing that for thousands of years? You are clearly the
fastest analyzer in the West!
You say the mystical insights come to those who suffer and not to those
who prepare or cultivate the mind. ( I'm sincerely sorry if you have
suffered more than most people.) But I think it's just that many people
who have to endure suffering for a long time often train themselves to
ignore the pain. They learn to manage their suffering through mental
discipline. So maybe we only disagree a little on that point.
Also remember that it was Pirsig's real life intellectual journey
through the history of philosophy that finally lead to ZAAMM and the
MOQ. Further, the story in ZAAMM is one of a thinking man and his
enlightenment. Cultivation of the mind, which includes the various
meditative techniques and intellectual pursuits, is widely recognized
as a valid path to enlightenment.
And we certainly agree about "new age" mysticism. Here in the U.S. they
sell new age books to neo-nazis at gun shows. Its all too ugly for me.
And we agree that love is in there too. I think Pirsig was afraid to use
to word cause of the Beatles' song. In any case, the words we use;
morality, goodness, quality, truth and beauty have love in them and are
related to different kinds of love. Yea, there is definitely love in
mysticism.
Your final paragraph actually destroyed any hope I had about your
on-line mystical vision. You say eyelids resemble curtians and so all
the world's a stage and so you got to have a heart? This is nothing but
a string of cliches. And badly strung too, it makes no sense at all.
David B.
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:45 BST