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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

http://www.worldpath.net/~hiker/quotes.htm

Carl Rogers did a lot of good work (On Becoming a Person). Also,
Alfred Adler (What Life Could Mean For You)

I guess I, personally, would rate Adler higher than Rogers, but
Rogers was important too, in his own way

The therapist serves as a Sphynx to the patient, an enigma, a puzzle.

The "tutors" (professors) at St. John's Great Books Program were that
sort of enigma to the students, with opening questions in seminars,
which never got answered.

"Why did Aenaes leave the Underworld through the gate of False
Dreams?" This was the opening question which one new Tutor (professor)
asked in my first seminar on Vergil's Aeneid.

I often wondered if that Tutor did not receive this ponderous
question from some drinking-buddy in a tavern the night before.

http://www.colorado.edu/Classics/clas4110/V3.html

3.7 Problem of the Gates of Ivory and Horn (VI.1211-1218). Why does
Aeneas leave through the gate of 'false dreams'? A notoriously
disputed question.

http://spacetart.tripod.com/epic/underworld.html

According to the above URL:

"The real subject of the Aeneid is not Aeneas... it is Rome and the
glories of her empire, seen as the romanticist sees the great past.
The first title given it was The Deeds of the Roman People. Aeneas is
important because he carries Rome's destiny; he is to be her founder
by the high decrees of fate."(Edith Hamilton, The Roman Way, 1960)
Aeneas easily gives up his aspects in the Underworld, transforming
completely into the 'Roman Aeneas' from the 'Trojan Aeneas' No more
does he strive for what he as a person wants, but for what he as a
cipher for the gods should want. Thus he goes through the gate of
false dreams, for these dreams are not his true dreams, but the ones
he has been told he should have. And this is the crux of why Aeneas
is such a moron. He does not adapt himself to his destiny, but
instead loses himself to it.

http://personal.monm.edu/mfanucce/Honors210Millennium/HONoRs210VergilP
aper.htm

As Aeneas exits the Underworld, Anchises brings Aeneas him to two
gates for his exit, one of horn, the other of white ivory. The
latter being the gate of false dreams, is the one to which Anchises
guides Aeneas for his exit: "there are two gates of Sleep, one said
to be of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease, the other all
white ivory agleam without a flaw, and yet false dreams are sent
through this one by the ghosts to the upper world" (Fitzgerald 191-
192). Virgil's inclusion of Aeneas leaving the Underworld through a
gate of false dreams is suggestive of two things: either the visit to
the Underworld with the prophetic visions of Anchises, and the souls
waiting to be born is a false dream; or the entirety of Aeneas's
journey is a false dream. This greatly impacts the overall epic
itself, in that, Aeneas is operating under the notion that he will
found a great nation at some point, when in actuality it could merely
be a false dream. On the other hand, the inclusion of this sort of
ambiguity may be Virgil's way of addressing the audience, as a way to
deny the historical accuracy of his epic.

http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/04mtg/abstracts/stevens.html

Many puzzling elements of the Aeneid can be explained more easily in
this way, not least of which is why criticism of the Aeneid from
Servius to the Renaissance displays a facile and degraded inheritance
of Stoicized Platonic allegoresis. Perhaps Vergil's text itself
intended some more sophisticated Platonic allegory. Aeneas' exit from
the underworld by the gate of false dreams is not perhaps
pessimistic: the world is a nexus of appearances which must be
interpreted correctly in order for man to act in accordance with the
hidden realities of life, including one's own true nature (soul) and
fated role in the world. The exit by this gate is perhaps merely a
description of reality. And the final scene of the Aeneid, in which
Aeneas, on the verge of killing Turnus, stops to interpret the belt
of Pallas with its depiction of the Danaids, suggests his application
of this ars. Whether one will argue that he judges rightly this scene
of marriage mixed with dolor, murder, and the destruction of a
nation, is another paper. But the suggestion that Aeneas progresses
toward divinity by attempting to progress in divine knowledge - that
pietas is intimately involved with the discernment of appearances
from realities - is a distinctly Platonic theme worthy of
consideration.

================

Perhaps the most important questions are not meant to be answered but
only asked.

The unanswerable question is the unmoved mover of the soul.

Rumi:.... "do not seek water, for water is everywhere. seek thirst"

The unexamined life is not worth living, but we must have "thirst"
(the sphynx) to motivate us.... we cannot be Quixote without a
windmill

It may have been Augustine who said "believe and ye have already
eaten".... (but not sure

Sartre said, without "void" (nothingness), all would be a plenum,
predetermined, there would be no freedom... the lack empowers

"tohu va bohu" (darkness and void) was already present in Genesis,
before God said "fiat lux" (Let there be light)

Darkness,chaos

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him", by Sheldon Kopp
(psychotherapist),.... 10 or so case studies

There are people who need gurus at certain times in their lives....
children need parents, heros, role-models (which does not mean that
every hero has a real existence, or is without flaw)

One of Kopps patients said: "whatever shall i do when we finally
terminate", Kopp said: "when that time comes, you will have
internalized me as a voice within yourself and you shall continue
these discussions of our on your own"

Internalization is what happens naturally, when, as an old man, I
leave a room , but pause and hear my late mother say "close the
lights", and so i close the lights... we internalize our parents
teachers heros... etc

Art and science step in when some natural process has not taken
place, or gone awry

Hopefully, we dont try to fix things which aint broke

It is easy to philosophize, moralize, speculate, when we are not the
one who suffers

Only the neurotic or psychotic individual can truly know the
suffering and terror of their own world

Sheldon Kopp wrote (in "If you meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill
Him", Ch. 3., "Disclosing the Self"):

When the great Rabbi Israel Ball Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening
the jews it was his custom to go into the certain part of the forest
to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and
the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated magid of Mezritch, had
occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go
to the same place in the forest and say: "Master of the Universe,
listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to
say the prayer." And again, the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people
once more, would bo into the forest and say: "I do not know how to
light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and
this must be sufficient."

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune.
Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am
unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even
find the place in the forset. All I can do is to tell the story, and
this must be sufficient." And it WAS sufficient.

God created Man because He loves stories.

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