>>> Marsha: >>> What may be interesting about Lila is her *recognizing* the social level's >>> "naive realism" in the psychological sense: whatever people think being >>> what is "real" - reality. This recognition is evident In Chapter 14: "You >>> don't see that. It's your questions that make me who I am. If you think I >>> 'm an angel then that's what I am. If you think I'm a whore then that's >>> what I am. I'm whatever you think." It is insightful, but I doubt that it >>> would raise her to the level of a mystic. >> >> David: >> Yes - there is a difference between the insane Lila and the mystics. >> While, as you point out, Lila rejects cultural patterns much like a mystic - >> she does eventually settle into (insane) static patterns of her own while a >> mystic would reject all patterns including their own. >> >>> Marsha: >>> Perhaps if she had demonstrated this insightful understanding throughout >>> the book she might have qualified as a mystic, but she clearly did not. >>> She lapsed into pronouncing social judgements based on "whatever she >>> thought" quite often. If she had demonstrated a consistent non-attachment >>> to static patterns (killed them all), she might have risen to that of a >>> wise sage. There was no tragic or happy ending to the story, so we are >>> free to speculate, or not. >> >> David: >> I agree. However at the end of the book the talking doll makes it pretty >> clear that it's doubtful she'll ever work through these patterns and that >> Rigel (with his social moralist ego) has her for life. >> > > Marsha: > Yes, it doesn't look good for the Lila character. How about the episode > between the Captain and the talking doll - the ritual - and his twirling > around like a child - casting aside attachment. Freedom. I see the book, > LILA, representing the game of life more attuned to the Hindu Goddess as > presented in the website. >
David: As per the website - 'Lila' is the 'spirit' of DQ - "Coomaraswamy (1941) in his article on Lila, after noting and discussing the pervasiveness of play, points out that the actual Sanskrit word lila is of post-Vedic origin. He traces lila’s roots, which he contends “must be related with lelay, ‘to flare’ or ‘flicker or ‘flame’ ” (p. 99) " "To support appreciation of the world in a spirit of religious wonder and to sustain a joy in living” (Hein, 1987, p. 551). Aurobindo (2000), in The Life Divine, teaches that the Divine is “a free artist” who creates real worlds and beings, and plays with and in souls in order to “lead them to ever higher levels of consciousness” This is the same sort of stuff as… ". In a Metaphysics of Quality, however, this light is important because it often appears associated with undefined auspiciousness, that is, with Dynamic Quality. It signals a Dynamic intrusion upon a static situation. When there is a letting go of static patterns the light occurs." "Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and always new. It was the moral force that had motivated the brujo in Zuni. It contains no pattern of fixed rewards and punishments. Its only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived evil is static quality itself - any pattern of one-sided fixed values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life." But if all we follow is Dynamic Quality creating new worlds as we go.. then what happens? "In the past Phasdrus' own radical bias caused him to think of Dynamic Quality alone and neglect static patterns of quality. Until now he had always felt that these static patterns were dead. They have no love. They offer no promise of anything. To succumb to them is to succumb to death, since that which does not change cannot live. But now he was beginning to see that this radical bias weakened his own case. Life can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no staying power. To cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns is to cling to chaos." So I disagree - there is more to the book LILA than the values (listed on the website you mentioned) of Dynamic Quality. In fact, a lot of it is about the importance of static values as well.. As Paul has said - try reading Chapter 13 only focusing on Dynamic Quality. 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/md/archives.html
