--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > He comes *so close* in this essay to bridging > > the gap between personal mystical experience > > via meditation/contemplation and religion, but > > in the end he refuses to make the leap, > > dismissing religion as "Iron Age fairy tales." > > > > If only one of his "hundred sides" of this > > intellectual struggle could involve a close study > > of religious dogma *alongside* the reports of > > mystical experience, to the point where it becomes > > clear that the dogma in many if not most cases is > > a metaphorical rendering of that very mystical > > experience rather than "Iron Age fairy tales" > > dreamed up in a vacuum. > > > > Bottom line, once the real nature of the "fairy > > tales" is understood, there will no longer be any > > need to dismiss and disparage them. > > I am not so sure you are that far apart. Here is a quote that struck me: > > "And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find > extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast > stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as rational > people, whether we call ourselves "atheists" or not, we have a choice > to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the contemplative > literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, deliberate > fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having interesting and > even normative experiences under the name of "spirituality" and > "mysticism" for millennia."
But then he turns around and says the religious stuff is "Iron Age fairy tales." > There is only a small part of religious literature that deals with > such experiences. *Directly and explicitly*, right. Since I don't buy that scriptures are divinely > inspired I don't see any reason to think that most religious > mythology is actually a type of code for spiritual experience. ?? Why should one negate the other? I don't think the scriptures are divinely inspired either. I *do* think they're *metaphorical* descriptions--created by human beans--of human experiences of the nature and mechanics of consciousness. When scriptures > talk about sacrificing an animal to appease a hidden God, I don't > feel compelled to see it as more than what it appears to be: a way > of thinking that people used to have when magical thinking was in > place of scientific thinking. What I'm suggesting is that you don't feel compelled to see it as a metaphor for something deeper because nobody's provided a compelling argument showing how the metaphor works. People like to make up stories and often > times they are completely wrong factually. The Sun really doesn't > get dragged across the sky in a chariot because it isn't the sun > moving that makes it appear to rise and set, we are moving around > the sun. It is a cute story but it misses the most important part > of our relationship with the sun, we revolve around it. But is it the physical sun that's really being described? Or is the sun a metaphor for something else? <snip> > MMY's religious devotion to his traditional scriptures marginalizes > his contribution to this field. His techniques were developed by a > pseudo scientific process of trial and error. I say pseudo because he > does not have a genuine interest in testing falsifiable theories, he > always loads the deck. (and the people on his development courses > don't get their money back when he finds something else, he just > charges them again for the new stuff.) > > Since your approach to Vedic scriptures isn't of the hook line and > sinker variety Judy, I would think you would have a more favorable > view of his position. I wish he would go to the trouble to explicate the metaphors and connect them directly to the experiences of consciousness. Sometimes he does-- in the famous Soma tape, for instance--but folks tend to take the explication the wrong way around, and think he's saying the metaphor is the reality.
