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

Date: Sat May 24, 2003 2:52 pm
Subject: Wise as Serpents but Harmless as Doves

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=60340

Sitaram: What's new?

Sitaram: (a rhetorical question)

Alacrity: Yes?

Sitaram: i.e. "What's new?" IS a rhetorical question.

Alacrity: I see.

Alacrity: I'm reading a book, "World Religions" by Mark Waters.

Sitaram: I read the one by Houston Smith... and I have another one,
by two authors/editors

Sitaram: also, Ninian Smart has one

Alacrity: A "made simple" layman's survey book.
Alacrity: I finally know something about Sikhims (sp?), about which I
knew virtually nothing.

Alacrity: Sikhism?

Sitaram: "Complexity made Simple" or "Brilliance for Dummies"

Alacrity: Ah.

Sitaram: there are some paperbacks out on Sikhism

Sitaram: and lots of sites in google.com search

Alacrity: Do you believe in the value of "priests", loosely speaking?

Sitaram: hmm... difficult question, from one perspective, from where
I am at the moment, answer is NO, but.... from other perspectives, yes

Sitaram: consider distinction between shaman and priest....
priesthood is a political ethnic seal of approval bestowed by
society.... a shaman has a subjective mystical experience....

Alacrity: Interesting.

Sitaram: certain societies take people from certain tribes, classes
(Levites) and "lay hands upon them", giving them authority, and from
that ordination, mysteries are presumed to flow

Sitaram: on contrary, shaman has mystical subjective experience, and
from that transformational experiene, authority flows

Alacrity: In an "organized" communal worship ritual, an "ordinary"
congregant may be selected as a sort of MC, "master of ceremonies."
If the congregants believe priests are unnecessary, then the MC is
seen as non-priestly. But if the congregants believe that priests are
useful, then the MC is seen as priestly. But isn't the distinction
basically meaningless?

Sitaram: Maya: a rope appears as a snake and we are needlessly
frightened, but if a snake appears as a rope, we are needlessly calm,
and are bitten

Alacrity: LOL, good one.

Sitaram: but "be ye subtle as serpents, but harmless as doves"
Sitaram: Jesus injunction to apostles

Alacrity: Right.

Alacrity: So, there's ambiguity, subjectivity, etc., re: the extent
to which an MC is seen as ordinary or extraordinary?

Sitaram: Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be
ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matt. 10:16).

Alacrity: Thank you.

Sitaram: hmmm.... I am reminded of a Zen story which is quite
appropriate about the "Zen Master of Silence"

Alacrity: It seems there is a mysterious double-nature to the whole
priest idea.

Alacrity: Zen story?

Sitaram: im searching for it now
Sitaram: here is url to my post of oct. 2001
Sitaram: http://www.indolink.com/Forum/Arts-Culture/messages/4481.html


A monk called himself the "Master of Silence." He was actually a
fraud and had no genuine understanding. To sell his humbug Zen, he
had two eloquent attendant monks to answer questions for him; but he
himself never uttered a word, as if to show his inscrutable "Silent
Zen."

One day, during the absence of his two attendants, a pilgrim monk
came to him and asked: "Master, what is the Buddha?" Not knowing what
to do or to answer, in his confusion he could only look desperately
around in all directions - east and west, here and there - for his
missing mouthpieces.

The pilgrim monk, apparently satisfied, then asked him: "What is the
Dharma?" he could not answer this question either, so he first looked
up at the ceiling and then down at the floor, calling for help from
heaven and hell.

Again the monk asked: "What is the Sangha?" Now the "Master of
Silence" could do nothing but close his eyes. Finally the monk
asked: "What is blessing?" In desperation, the "Master of Silence"
helplessly spread his hands to the questioner as a sign of surrender.
But the pilgrim monk was very pleased and satisfied with this
interview.

He left the "Master" and set out again on his journey. On the road
the pilgrim met the two attendant monks on their way home, and began
telling them enthusiastically what an enlightened being this "Master
of Silence" was. He said, "I asked him what Buddha is. He immediately
turned his face to the east and then to the west, implying that human
beings are always looking for Buddha here and there, but actually
Buddha is not to be found either in the east or i
Sitaram: east or in the west.

I then asked him what the Dharma is. I answer to this question he
looked up and down, meaning that the truth of Dharma is a totality of
equalness, there being no discrimination between high and low, while
both purity and impurity can be found therein.

In answering my question as to what the Sangha was, he simply closed
his eyes and said nothing. that was a clue to the famous saying: "If
one can close his eyes and sleep soundly in the deep recesses of the
cloudy mountains, he is then a great monk."

"Finally, in answering my last question, 'What is the blessing?' he
stretched out his arms and showed both his hands to me. This implied
that he was stretching out his helping hands to guide sentient beings
with his blessings. Oh, what an enlightened Zen Master
Sitaram: How profound is his teaching!"

When the attendant monks returned, the "Master of Silence" scolded
them thus: "Where have you been all this time? A while ago I was
embarrassed to death, and almost ruined by an inquisitive pilgrim!"

- from "The World of Zen - An East-West Anthology" edited by Nancy
Wilson Ross, Random House, 1960



Alacrity: LOL. Lovely.

Sitaram: moral of story..... the "master of silence" knew himself to
be a phoney, yet the FAITH of the visitor ELEVATED him functionally
to an enlightened Buddha

Alacrity: This is like, be silent and seem wise, speak and seem a
fool.

Sitaram: He who knows does not say. he who says does not know - Way
of Tao, Lao Tse

Alacrity: Meditating under a tree or beside the sea, etc., seems like
being in the presence of the Ineffable because the tree, the sea,
etc., say nothing.

Alacrity: Or perhaps the tree, the sea, etc., speak in tongues",
nonsense whispers...the breeze rustling the leaves, the surf, etc.

Sitaram: Kierkegaard's point that it was ABRAHAM who CHOSE to
interpret his experience as a geniune command from God (thereby
empowering it) rather than choosing to see it as a temptation of
Satan, or a figment of imagination

Alacrity: Good point. "Fear and Trembling."

Alacrity: The leap of faith. The existential dilemma.

Alacrity: Rely only on yourself for the ultimate choices.

Alacrity: Of action, interpretation, belief, valuation, etc.

Sitaram: Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism, is an example of shamanistic
experience, solitary, subjective, non-partisan, apolitical.... and
Nanak becomes Guru/Priest

Alacrity: Apparently.

Alacrity: Re: Nanak, etc., I have two questions, now.

Sitaram: but by the tenth and last Sikh Guru,... the decision is made
by him to declare himself final Guru (living, human) and to designate
the Sikh scriptures (Adi Granth) as Guru....

Alacrity: You know much about Sikhism, I see.

Sitaram: yes

Alacrity: My first question is, To what extent is a religious
founder/leader intrinisically possessing "charisma"...which
ostensibly accounts for his success in founding a religion...and to
what extent, as we've been saying here now, is charisma entirely in
the subjective impression of the followers...indicating that a
religion succeeds as the surface phenomenon of an underlying
social "ethos"??

Sitaram: nothing succeeds like success (who said that)

Sitaram: a following/movement is ipso facto proof of charisma
(whether for good or for evil)

Alacrity: Don't know, but it's like a tautological interpretation of
Darwin..."That which survives, survives."

Alacrity: So, it's as if we awake from a trance, mysteriously find
ourselves taking a chocolate cake, freshly baked out of the oven. We
enjoy eating it, meanwhile wondering, was it given to us, or did we
make it ourselves?

Alacrity: We can only acknowledge the cake's existence, and celebrate
it because it's so delicious.

Alacrity: Okay, my second question, re: Nanak.

Sitaram: sorry for interjection, but im finding emile durkheim on
shaman vs priesthood

Alacrity: Okay, I'll hold off my second question.

Sitaram: no.... please continue... I just wanted to mention

Alacrity: Very well...

Alacrity: I understand that Sikhim arose partly inspired as a
reaction to the perceived exclusivity of Islam and Hinduism. Hence,
in contrast, Nanak taught the inclusivity of Sikhism. However,
naturally, Sikhism urges that Sikhs have allegiance to no other
religion other than Sikhism. My question is, therefore, just as we've
been looking at the fuzzy distinction between priest/shaman, isn't
there also a fuzzy distinction between the extent to which every
religion teaches some degree of excluvity and some degree of
inclusivity, simultaneously?

Sitaram: priesthood develops as the institutionalisation

http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/soc_essays/WeberEssay2.htm

Sitaram: good point, inclusivity/exclusivity

Alacrity: Ah, well, that addresses a third question I have,
re: "organization."

Sitaram: the religious ecstatic dances in the wilderness, and
centuries later, theologians choreograph that spontaniety as a
passion play or chorale

Alacrity: I mean, it's possible to enjoy the "organization" of a
religion, religiously rather than politically. Or vice versa. But to
have a religion devoid of organization, can seem to throw the baby
out with the bath water. Unorganized religion at least avoids the
political aspect of religion, but may inadvertantly remove some of
the purey religious aspect, for some people. Although some think
of "religion" as a dirty word synonymous with "church", etc.

Sitaram: a blind poet sings from inspiration, and centuries later, a
sweaty PhD candidate grinds out a thesis

Alacrity: Spontaneity vs. choreography.

Sitaram: but any belief which is TOO inclusive, tolerant, subjective
is BY DEFINITION not sufficiently self-perpetuation

Alacrity: Isn't it like asking, which comes first, the writing or the
inspiration? If the writing seems inspired, then perhaps some believe
the writing comes first, then the non-verbal spirituality. Or must
the non-verbal spirituality necessarily always precede the verbal?

Alacrity: Perhaps it's like the distinction between form and
substance, a bit Aristotelian.

Alacrity: Can form exist without substance? Can substance without
form? Etc.

Alacrity: Or, isn't it like the two hemispheres of the brain...one
analytic, verbal, etc., the other synthetic, holistic, nonverbal. In
reality, human thought and behavior is global, utitilizing both
hemispheres.

Alacrity: Or, is there something which is "balancing both opposites
on the edge simultaneously" which leads to the best mystical
experiences, anyway.

Alacrity: I mean, the ecstatic wilderness dancer may be inspired to
codify. Or the Talmudic scholar may be inspired to dance ecstatically
in the wildnerness.

Sitaram: good point about dancing Hasidic

Alacrity: Precisely!
Alacrity: Baal Shem Tov, was it?

Sitaram: your comments are touching, curiously, upon what I posted
this morning regarding Plato's metaphor of the weavers loom, warp,
woof, shuttle, as a metaphor for dialectical process

Alacrity: Interesting.

Alacrity: Compare a Hasidic Jew, turning from codification to simple
heart-felt faith....and Moses, who we might imagine experiencing the
ecstasy of reacting against the Golden Calf revelry to codify the
Decalogue.

Sitaram: here is link to what I posted this morning

Sitaram: http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp?
forum=philosophy&cid=60313&show=0

Alacrity: Thanks.

Sitaram: Commentary on "A Ghost of Plato"

Sitaram: loom warp woof metaphor at bottom of post

Alacrity: May I ask, does this appear in one of his dialogues?

Sitaram: yes,,,... I have excerpts and links in that post

Alacrity: To me, tangentially, it's a little like a jazz musician
being "in the groove", if you know what I mean.

Sitaram: In Hegelian phraseology the State is the reality of which
justice is the ideal. Or, described in Christian language, the
kingdom of God is within, and yet develops into a Church or external
kingdom; "the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," is
reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a
Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which
run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State
is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but
reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both
as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle
of rewards and punishments in another life.

Sitaram: excerpt from post

Alacrity: There is a marriage of structure, technique, etc., with
abandon, emotion. There is free flow within discipline. It is a
balancing of tension and relaxtion, of control and lack of control.

Sitaram: choreographed duels in movies like 'Count of Monte Christo'

Alacrity: Your excerpt is a bit pantheist.

Sitaram: http://eserver.org/philosophy/plato/republic.txt

Alacrity: Well, acting would be dull if the script were robotically
followed. And yet, without a script, there would be no movie.

Sitaram: its from that url I think

Alacrity: So, in brief, you believe Ego = God?
Alacrity: The Self is divine?

Sitaram: what I think involves "dependent co-arising", and is hard to
put in a few words (though I am always trying to do just that)

Alacrity: Very well phrased!
Alacrity: Dependent co-arising. It's the heart of the mystery of all
forms of "revelation."
Alacrity: A Hindu god, his avatar, his vehicle, etc.

Sitaram: you made me think of a line from one of my poems, not a line
but a phrase "the tidalness of space", I did a google search and my
page is only page

Sitaram: http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/poem030.htm

Alacrity: It's also very akin to the mystery of language
acquisition...if you don't know a language, how can you understand
what it means in order to learn to speak it? but if you already know
a language, how did you acquire it if you never learned it?



The height of mind is the language of one word,
Which, from it, when once uttered, comes one thought.
And that thought might be every thought;
The tidalness of space,
The birth of stars,
The wandering of suns and planets;
Cool clear jets of thought which might rain down,
Smoothly to one thin current of emotion.
Convections in the winds of reasons,
The vortex of meanings and the flow of words
From the mouth of the mind.
Signatures of the wind, the rain, and time upon the rocks,
'Til they be sands to span the stones and pebbles;
The nature of resistance
In indigestible nuggets.



Alacrity: Nice.
Alacrity: Quite like "Om."



A sun rose and set as I though this thought;
That I may move and yet I may stand still,
That I may be many,
Or one,
Or,
If I will,
Nothing;
That I may travel for always, remaining here,
Tell all to all, yet hold,
Silent and secret, infinitely, my knowledge.

Man has a way of killing gods and plucking angels' wings;
Laboriously building heavens up,
Only to then move on;
Telling great, beautiful lies to himself,
Only to find them out and call it Truth.
He loves with a force that slows to jealousy
The splendid monuments that he builds up,
Higher, until they reach above his head,
And prick, in his mind, his secret inadequacy.



Alacrity: Or, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Sylvester Stallone
once said, in his opinion, the "perfect" screenply consists of 10
pages of action, and just one word of dialogue..."F*ck." LOL.



Beauty is simplicity of motion
Envisioned in the eye or in the mind;
Constant and co-ordinated reflex,
The interplay of matter, force, and time.
Stars in step with stars and galaxies;
Birth, life, death, rebirth in cyclic patterns;
Change and evolution from the ocean,
A multitude, expanding and contracting,
Beginning, metamorphosis, and end.



Alacrity: Yes, this thing with point versus curve. Stasis vs. cycles.



To be born is the thaw
Of a leaf frozen in time,
The clear lattice of ice crumbling.
And the leaf which falls is Now.
It is the fall of each leaf that ever fell.
And it is the fall of all leaves yet to fall.
The future quivering in expectation.
Loneliness is the thought that I am myself.
Thundering breaths of light on the sea of sight!
The drone of fingers tracing out desire!
An eyebrow posing a question.
The hungry animal, Curiosity, stalking.



Alacrity: Location vs. motion.

Alacrity: Ergo, the chakras = motionless motion, like the whirling
dervishes, perhaps, or rosary beads. Spinning married with stasis.
Rotation in place. Like the mind. Active yet without action.

Alacrity: Maybe this accounts for animism, as the roots of all
spirituality. We assume that objects and natural forces around us
contain "chakras" of silent, invisible, abstract, active yet
inactive, "mental" processes.

Alacrity: Trivially, as the mind functions invisibly in the human
being, so to God is imagined as invisibly functioning in the Universe.
Alacrity: Thawing of the leaf frozen in time...nice.
Alacrity: Makes me think of matter as "slowed down light."
Alacrity: Space, matter, exist only because time has been dilated
from its mirror-image of timeless omnipresent light.

Sitaram: I just did a google search on "dust of old ideas"
Sitaram: again, my other poem was the only hit

Alacrity: But now I'm blending neoplatonism with Einstein mass-energy
equivalence.



Once, in the nerving shallow of this world,
A someone happened, and I happened too.
And we became each other,
Sinking through the noiseless voice embraced.
And we communicated.
And still there was no trace
Between the airless aethers of the waste
Of our exchange.
And still no change was made
Except within the realms of our recall.

And all around us was the gentle fall
Of sentence fragments,
Dust of old ideas.
And as it drifted past our face,
Upon the force of passions gone extinct
Expressed agos ago
At objects which they missed,
We came apart to find we were the same.

No name was different;
No souvenirs of all that passed between,
No places to revisit,
For there was no place,
Except in the passing time,
No sign remaining, symbol or design
To trace or recreate our path,
When we, so near, no longer had to hear,
For we could touch intention's very lips,

No remnant to efficate at all,
Except for the sound consuming hush
Of displaced sentience,
It's rush and fall,
At the tips of our fingertips.

There may never be another time
When you will meet,
When I will meet,
When we will meet,
And feel as we feel now.
There may never come another place,
Another glance where things seem as they are.

And here is the sadness in our happiness:
That what we are
Has still yet to become.

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