1. The term "mystic" cannot be entirely applied to Hindu thought (let alone Eastern philosophy). In the Hindu tradition, there are six schools of philosophy (darsana), and three schools as I see them can already be branded as atheist (Sankhya, Vaisesika and Nyaya), because they don't have the stereotypical notions of God. Vedanta, another school of Hindu thought, is the purest form of mysticism.
These six schools have been compared to the six sides of a cube-shaped room such that all the six sides are different types of glasses through which the central object in the room is seen. Thus, in a way, the six schools have basically the same essence (that of knowing Brahman, the absolute reality). 2. The Gayatri mantra, the most famous of all, begins with "Bhur Bhuvah Svahah". This informs us of *three* planes instead of the usual two (subjective and objective): subjective, objective and pseudo-objective. Modern science has gone deep into the pseudo-objective world and examined it well, but it claims that it is the Truth, whereas it is not so, according to the Hindu tradition, because the pseudo-objective world is merely an effect of the objective world. By the way, the ontological triad (subjective, pseudo-objective and objective worlds) are also isomorphic when applied to epistemology, which gives us the known, knowable and unknown. More on this later. Akshay On 30/11/2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Marsha (attention Akshay and Khoo) > > 28 Nov. you wrote: > > > At 01:39 AM 11/28/2007, Bo wrote: > > > >Another thing is that P himself went and undermined the MOQ by > > >turning idealist himself, but that's another story. > > > Greetings Bo, > > > You've eluded to this many times. Why don't you tell this part of the > > story? You may be wrong, but heroic. > > Well, let me have a go at the said issue. Early in LILA Pirsig > speaks about metaphysics-writing. > > It was fascinating to watch this thing grow. No one that > he knew had ever written a whole metaphysics before and > there were no rules for doing it and no way of predicting > how it would progress. (Page 16 digital LILA) > > And this is just right. No one has ever written a metaphysics in > the MOQ sense. > > But even then the assertion that metaphysics is > meaningless sounded false to him. As long as you're > inside a logical, coherent universe of thought you can't > escape metaphysics. > > This is also correct, meaning that no human being is/can be > outside a "metaphysics". The most remote tribes will have > explanations of reality, we call these mythologies, but are > metaphysics in this all-embracing sense. > > When an anthropologist studies "primitive" metaphysics he is at a > higher metaphysical ground relative to these, namely the SOM > (intellect in our book) that has risen above these (social level in > our book). Till now Pirsig had been spot on, but then he suddenly > deviated and turned "mystics". > > To define something is to subordinate it to a tangle of > intellectual relationships. > > Here the notion of metaphysics as "intellect", i.e. that any > "explanation of experience" is intellect emerges, and the ensuing > trouble starts. > > And when you do that you destroy real understanding. > The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phædrus > had called "Quality" in his first book, is not a metaphysical > chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You > understand it without definition, ahead of definition. > > This is not right. Understanding - real or not - requires a context, > a system. Even a grand epiphany isn't much until it is made into > a system and conveyed to other. > > Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to > intellectual abstractions. Quality is indivisible, undefinable > and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a > known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A > metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, > or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is > essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since > Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a > "Metaphysics of Quality" is essentially a contradiction in > terms, a logical absurdity. > > Regardless how much he wants to keep Quality outside > everything it is part and parcel of the MOQ, and - heck - Quality > can be inside the MOQ and still outside definition. Anyway, by > this he shifted from the initial notion of metaphysics as a totality > to the Aristotelian type of an ineffable reality that metaphysics are > more or less correct maps of. > > Aristotle is SOM so you see the connection: The ineffable reality > is the real OBJECTIVE part while a metaphysics is the > SUBJECTIVE theory. Thus "Quality as Reality" and MOQ as a > mere theory is SOM in a thin Quality guise. > > The true MOQ looks like thisis this: > > DYNAMIC QUALITY/STATIC QUALITY. > > My guess is that "mysticism" is a SOM (Western) name for the > Eastern metaphysics and that the Orientals don't regard > themselves to be mystics. I hope Akshay Peshwe (the hindu) > would put in a word here, that goes for Khoo Hock Aun too who I > believe is a Buddhist. > > Bo > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
