On Dec 30, 2007, at 3:17 PM, david buchanan wrote: > "American don't have to go to the Orient to learn what this > mysticism stuff is about. In the Orient they dress it up with > rituals and incense and pagodas and chants and , of course, huge > organizational enterprises that bring in the equivalent of millions > of dollars every year. American Indians haven't done this. Their > way is not to be organized at all. They don't charge anything, they > don't make a big fuss, and that's what makes people underrate > them. Phaedrus remembered saying to Dusenberry just after that > peyote meeting was over, > 'The Hindu understanding is just a low-grade imitation of THIS! > This is how it must have really been before all the clap-trap got > started.'"
Being a practicing Hindu, I can't help but challenge that last statement... I think Pirsig's experience with the "Hindu understanding" is very limited in it's scope and perhaps a tad colored by an inherent chauvinism (there is a very interesting book on this phenomenon by Prof. SN Balagangadhara of Ghent University titled "The Heathen in his blindness"? http://books.google.com/books?id=ad7EaD7fOL8C&dq=heathen+in+his +blindness&pg=PP1&ots=TZn0_0drEg&sig=hJhthtgP636kp9aMwbvLxmEaEuw&hl=en&p rev=http://www.google.com/search?q=Heathen+in+his +blindness&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with- thumbnail To understand the Hindu experience, one has to practice what a spiritually inclined Hindu practices -- including (but not limited to) years of meditation and adherence to Yamas and niyamas and possibly accompanied by pranayama and asana practice. I think Pirsig (not withstanding his brilliant mind) wasn't anywhere close to this direct experiential regimen? Pratyaksha anumana gamah pramanani (See http://www.dailyreadings.com/ ys1-1.htm for more commentary on this (1.7 -- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali))... 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/
