Hi Rob, Roger, David, Struan and Group:
To begin I want to take issue with David's and Roger's seeming
implication that mystical experience is somehow different from everyday,
ordinary experience. David said that the "mystical experience comes
after a lot of work.� Roger said, "Mystical experience and intellectual
advancement are two re-enforcing dimensions of the path."
It's my understanding from what various Zen masters say about
enlightenment (Ma-tsu, Amakuki Sessan, Huang Po, Niu-tou Fay-yung,
Yung-chia, and others including the Western interpreter, Alan Watts) that
the mystical experience is our present and ordinary state of awareness,
identical to whatever we happen to be thinking or doing at the moment.
One does not have to "work" or take a �path� to be enlightened. It is not a
particular experience, level of consciousness or state of inner realization.
Rather it is precisely whatever level you happen to working from at the
present time.
Sri Ramana Maharshi expressed it thus:
"You must get rid of the idea that you are an ajnani (ignorant one) and
have yet to realize the Self. You are the Self. Was there ever a time
when you were not aware of the Self?"
Or says a Zenrin poem:
�If you understand, things are just as they are.
If you do not understand, things are just as they are.�
Rob's original question was:
"Who is a better judge of a moral question, an open-minded, sensitive
person or one who is well-versed in the MOQ.�
Both Roger and David seemed to jump to the conclusion that the
"sensitive person" must necessarily be more of a mystic than an
intellectual who is "well-versed in the MOQ," thus setting up an either/or
situation between mysticism and intellectualism which they both rightly
knocked down as a false dichotomy, but on different grounds than the
one I describe above. The grounds I choose were well expressed by
Roger in his post of Feb. 27:
"Intellectual experience and thoughts are just as much a form of
Direct Experience (i.e., mysticism, Dynamic Quality, the "now")
as is any other experience." (Parens added)
My interpretation of Rob's question was, "Who would I accept more
readily as a moral authority (with the power to back up his rulings), an
open-minded, sensitive person or one well-versed in the MOQ?" In other
words, when it comes to dishing out moral judgments would I rather be
subject to an individual�s whim of the moment or to rational deliberation
based on objective moral principles? The former leads to relativism and
social decline. I'll take the latter any day.
Finally, thank you Rob for posting the lecture excerpt from Krishnamurti. I
assure you that my outlook is the same as yours and his--an effort to
attain perfection of absolute beauty--to see or hear, in Edgar Allan Poe�s
words, �. . . a sight or sound which cannot have been unfamiliar to
angels." Too, the freedom he stresses is the core of the MOQ, freedom
being the only perceived good of Dynamic Quality. I sensitively judge
Krishnamurti�s words to be truly wonderful. (-:
Platt
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