Hi WillBlake --
Yes, letting go of self, of the ego, of self consciousness.
The attainment of truth, liberation, as the Upanishads, Buddha,
Taoism, Zen, would all claim. I believe in that and am working
towards that too.
It would seem from recent interpretations of MoQ (which is
obviously still in the making) that such release is not consistent
with this philosophy. In fact the claim is we are subject to
group behavior not individual expression.
Sad but true. One has to acknowledge the self of consciousness before he
can let go of it.
Relegating ego and consciousness to a collective intellect is a step in the
opposite direction. It denies the very self that seeks liberation and
truth -- even the freedom to choose that path. For if there is no knowing
'I' to realize truth, if we have surrendered the subjective self to the
objective universe, what is there left to liberate?
But, as Pirsig has said in interviews, MoQ is waiting for the next
independent thinker, to carry it along. It would seem Pirsig is
waiting as well. Plato had his academy, current philosophies have
the Internet. Much more powerful and capable of generating
a synthesis of ideas, and even new ones, if there is actually
something new under the sun. What an opportunity!
There's nothing new under the sun, but there is much to be revealed about
existence if we don't approach it with a closed mind. Socrates said "The
unexamined life is not worth living." But introspection is meaningless to
those who deny the insight it can afford us. How often has Science been
accused in this forum of failing to answer ultimate questions? Yet, the
same voices are quick to demean spirituality and metaphysical insight as
mythical remnants of an unenlightened age.
Psychiatrist Richard Schain has written:
"The tendency to neglect the metaphysical aspect of human life has always
existed in the history of mankind but no era has so depreciated and
disparaged metaphysics as the current one. Metaphysics is relegated to the
realm of scholarly study or traditional religions where it exists in a
tethered, tradition-bound form of little use to those seeking to develop
their position in the universe. ...
"'...[T]he essential feature in the life of an individual is his valuation
of his interior self, i.e. his subjective self. There is no greater tragedy
than the failure of an individual to realize this value. What hinders this
development, however, is the modern view that there is no such thing as the
self, that there is only a complex arrangement of synapses and neurons in
the brain, giving rise to the illusion of self. Without a belief in the
metaphysical self, humans are at the mercy of their environment, which in
the present age fares little for the development of an interior self. Only
a radical metaphysics will save the individual from drowning in the swamps
of the materialist dogmas of contemporary society."
-- [R. Schain: "Toward a Radical Metaphysics"]
Me, I want to live from the inside out, not the outside in; I want to
radiate, not absorb. . . I want to be a sun, not a black hole, I want
to be responsible, not a victim. All this can result from freedom
of the confining, needing, ego, "grasping and clinging" as a
translation of the early writers of Buddha's teachings would stress.
As agents of value, we are all potential "suns". But if we cease desiring,
as the Buddhists prescribe for "avoiding pain", we shut off the value
sensibility that connects us with our essential source. That's retreating
to a "black hole" existence in which being-aware has no more meaning than
the insentient rock and human beings are pawns of biological evolution.
We'll never understand man's place in the universe by pretending that
subjects and objects don't exist.
I share your sentiments, Will. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to
reflect on them.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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