Selling mysticism

[TheAdlerian]

This is a great topic!

The first kind of philosophy that I ever got into was Zen philosophy. An important aspect to it is that if you get an understanding of it you aren’t supposed to explain it to anyone and that’s for some very specific reasons. Mostly it has to do with objectivity and you can only explain objectivity in subjective terms, so the point will always be lost. So, the philosophy can seem a bit weird because it is mostly taught by telling stories and that you are supposed to get the point of without being directly told.

Anyway, I like Zen and Taoism because most of the concepts focus on how to live life and what kind of attitude to have. Zen suggests that you try to have a low anxiety mind that is open and Taoism suggests that you try to live a life of moderation, and both could be compared to stoicism. In fact Nietzsche, in form, reminds me a lot of an eastern philosopher. So, really these classic eastern philosophy are simple guides to living.

However, there’s a kind of eastern philosophy that I hate and I suggest isn’t really a philosophy at all. It’s the stuff that you hear from “gurus,” who according to what I know have to be conmen. In Zen philosophy it says that, “if you ever meet the Buddha in the road, kill him.” That means that the no real Buddha (a very perfect detached person) would tell you that he was the Buddha because it wouldn’t matter to him. You have to figure out that the person is a Buddha because they wouldn’t talk like they’re “enlightened” or any of that kind of thing.

So, the eastern philosophy that is nonsense is the obtuse doubletalk that Dunamis and myself used to confront several members of the board about. It’s a dialogue filled with buzz words and metaphors that never gets to or has a point, and is in fact an egotistical form of showing off. Example: You are clearly a soul that making an inward journey to let go and in the letting go to become. We all seek knowledge and it is a knowledge of balance and not of ego, for ego is of this plain and not of the next.

I made all of that up, but here’s how it breaks down:

1. You: an appeal to your special ness and a selling point.
2. Soul: a buzzword that implies quality.
3. Inward journey: this is a metaphor that has little real meaning. It sounds like thinking but has a difficult adventure quality to it.
4. Let go: another metaphor with little meaning because you can’t “let go” of things in your mind like you could something in your hand.
5. To become: another metaphor.
   6: knowledge: this is a buzzword that suggests an ideal state that you aren’t in and that will just happen without work.
6. Balance: fairly meaningless buzzword as the human mind is in constant flux, so to have a balanced mind is not possible for long. Life is largely out of our control so that will never be balanced either.
7. Ego: Buzz word with negative connotations. Really the word just means “I” which is impossible to avoid in thinking, but the word just sounds selfish.
8. Plain: science-fiction buzz word that speaks to a world better than this one.

So, it’s my analysis that charlatans use this kind of dialogue to appeal to gullible people that are not happy with themselves or life on Earth, and are not the most critical of thinkers. Meanwhile, the self delusional are magnetically drawn to this stuff because the buzz words act like a mind numbing drug that makes them feel good about their desire to distance themselves from real life.

So, give the source material of eastern philosophy a chance and never trust another person’s interpretation of it.

[Mastriani]

Being a person who lived in both China and Japan, and visited one of the great Taoist monasteries at Huashaun mountain, I’ll go with this:

tenative said:

A possible point: Eastern thought and those who teach or speak about it, really don’t care whether the western head ‘gets it’ or not. They are quite happy and secure in their understanding, and if there is a problem, it is ours.

This is a most correct statement. Most eastern philosophy is believed by eastern people’s to be culturally bound. If you don’t get it, they really don’t care, and in many cases believe you shouldn’t be able to understand.

Ghandi even said to an american journalist, “Hinduism is for the Indian people, you should stick to western understanding and the religion of your country.” Not that it was received well, but the point is made nonetheless.

[Jerry]

@liquidangel

Jerry, you’ve enticed me.

I figured you were lurking about, Angel.

A couple of things I might take issue with:

For me, there is something quite fundamental which exists in the world and that thing I find is best reflected in Eastern thought. Not because they have a better way of expressing it, but rather because they have a more complete way of expressing it.

Western thought is an intellectual exercise whereas Eastern thought is engaged with practice

I would submit that eastern philosophy doesn’t contain any ideas that cannot also be found in western thought, or can’t be explained in western terms. Is there a fundamental difference between saying, in eastern terms, “I see the Tao in everything,” and saying, in western terms, “I am a pantheist”? I have explained eastern thought to western thinking people using western terms, such as pantheism, and their eyes light up. Ah-ha, they say. Thanks.

Now, that’s not to say there aren’t some differences (maybe even large ones), but these differences are no bigger than differences between the many different kinds of eastern thought, or the many different kinds of western thought. There’s quite a spectrum and pantheism would have to be said to be closer to Taoism than it is, to say, fundamental Christianity even though we associate both pantheism and fundamental Christianity with western thought.

Of course the experience of a worldview in one’s life (your walk in the woods) is quite a personal thing, it seems to me, and as such cannot really be adequately described. It would have to be experienced, but a Christian fundamentalist would claim the same thing.

The point I think I’m making is how do we describe the train of thought (the train of thought that leads to the experience, not the experience itself) to somebody in an understandable way?

Let me use JT’s question as an example:

@tentative

You sell and market. Please explain, in ten minutes, the engineering advantages of a Porsche over a Ford when all I want is to get to work in the morning…

To a Ford owner I would explain the advantages of the Porsche in Ford terms. You know how much horsepower your Ford has? You know how when you stomp on the gas you get x amount of acceleration? Well, with the Porsche, you’ll get twice the horsepower and your acceleration will be much improved. (This is not the best example but JT threw it at me and what am I to do?) The Ford owner is not going to really be able to get it until he gets behind the wheel of the Porsche, but at least he’ll have an idea as to what I’m talking about. It might even make him want to take it for a test drive.

Is it not possible, in other words, to explain eastern thought (not the experience of eastern thought) using the terms of the western thinker?

[liquidangel]

@Jerry

Is it not possible, in other words, to explain eastern thought (not the experience of eastern thought) using the terms of the western thinker?

Of course it is possible. Like you said, Eastern thought is not exclusively Eastern.

@Jerry

The point I think I’m making is how do we describe the train of thought (the train of thought that leads to the experience, not the experience itself) to somebody in an understandable way?

There is the school of thought which I’m personally inclined to agree with. You don’t explain it, you reveal it. This is why, even if we intellectually understand eastern thinking, if we don’t have an actual experience of it, we will fail to express it. What is truly mystical and unknowable cannot be described in any language, neither the western mind nor the eastern mind can grasp. But it can be observed in the actions of the teacher, hence one becomes aware that one is in the presence of a Master. The Master doesn’t express it in any other way than through his very being.

Having said that, there are ways to elude, to point in the direction. You use the example of what is happening right in front of you. i.e. You want to express the ‘concept’ of letting go. You take an object, an object that is right in front of you and you hold it firmly in your hand. Hold tightly, make a fist, with your palm facing downwards. What would happen if I let go of the object? The object would fall to the ground. So in the letting go you would have dropped the object, perhaps if the object was fragile it would break. Now take the same object and hold it in the palm of your hand, palm facing upwards. Make a fist around the object and then let go. What happens? The object remains in your hand without falling to the ground. What you’ve done, is demonstrate the ‘eastern’ concept of ‘letting go’. In the letting go, you still hold the object but the object is free. There is a ‘secret’ in what is observed. That secret cannot be translated into words. But leads to an experience. Now east or west, letting go is letting go.

Of course you notice that my style of writing is very ‘Eastern’ as there is a message between the lines, but the message is available to the Western mind. It depends on the mind.

Of course Jerry, I’m wondering exactly what it is that you are trying to express to the western mind, because we all have our own affinities and this is dangerous territory to the western mind, note I did not say philosopher, but it is dangerous territory because what exactly creates an affinity? Why is it that eastern philosophy speaks to me so fundamentally yet to my sister is gobbledygook?

I apologise if I didn’t give you the answer you were looking for…maybe I need to go away.

A

[Jerry]

@liquidangel

Of course Jerry, I’m wondering exactly what it is that you are trying to express to the western mind, because we all have our own affinities and this is dangerous territory to the western mind, note I did not say philosopher, but it is dangerous territory because what exactly creates an affinity? Why is it that eastern philosophy speaks to me so fundamentally yet to my sister is gobbledygook?

I am imagining a starting point with somebody who doesn’t have a real affinity exactly, but more of a curiosity. I’m assuming the curiosity is a given or there would be no point in the communication to begin with. You sister, regarding the subject matter as gobbledygook, probably has a very low level of curiosity to begin with. But what I would think we would want to express to a curious western mind is at least an idea of what we see in eastern thought, an idea expressed to him or her in his or her own language. And I’m aware that that’s all we can do. He or she has to take it from there. But it might be enough to produce an affinity of sorts, or at least more curiosity.

Please don’t go away…

[liquidangel]

One of the reasons why Buddhists traditionally begged using a begging bowl for their food was to create affinity with the giver in future lives to have affinity with Buddhism. Every cause has an effect. You know.

Edit: Of course the effect is also with the beggar. Enter karma. And there are your reasons for our varying affinities. When it comes to Tao or The Word or whatever, we all have affinity, what is different is the way our minds are mapped.

A

[thirst4metal]

Hello F(r)iends,

@TheAdlerian

Example: You are clearly a soul that making an inward journey to let go and in the letting go to become. We all seek knowledge and it is a knowledge of balance and not of ego, for ego is of this plain and not of the next.

I made all of that up, but here’s how it breaks down:

1. You: an appeal to your special ness and a selling point.
2. Soul: a buzzword that implies quality.
3. Inward journey: this is a metaphor that has little real meaning. It sounds like thinking but has a difficult adventure quality to it.
4. Let go: another metaphor with little meaning because you can’t “let go” of things in your mind like you could something in your hand.
5. To become: another metaphor.
   6: knowledge: this is a buzzword that suggests an ideal state that you aren’t in and that will just happen without work.
6. Balance: fairly meaningless buzzword as the human mind is in constant flux, so to have a balanced mind is not possible for long. Life is largely out of our control so that will never be balanced either.
7. Ego: Buzz word with negative connotations. Really the word just means “I” which is impossible to avoid in thinking, but the word just sounds selfish.
8. Plain: science-fiction buzz word that speaks to a world better than this one.

So, it’s my analysis that charlatans use this kind of dialogue to appeal to gullible people that are not happy with themselves or life on Earth, and are not the most critical of thinkers. Meanwhile, the self delusional are magnetically drawn to this stuff because the buzz words act like a mind numbing drug that makes them feel good about their desire to distance themselves from real life.

So, give the source material of eastern philosophy a chance and never trust another person’s interpretation of it.

Well done! Nothing like reducing those damn mystics to the frauds that they really are… Whose next on the list?

-Thirst4Cruelty

[Jerry]

@liquidangel

One of the reasons why Buddhists traditionally begged using a begging bowl for their food was to create affinity with the giver in future lives to have affinity with Buddhism. Every cause has an effect. You know.

Edit: Of course the effect is also with the beggar. Enter karma. And there are your reasons for our varying affinities. When it comes to Tao or The Word or whatever, we all have affinity, what is different is the way our minds are mapped.

Well a western mind would certainly understand cause and effect. And in western terms, one could describe the karmic level of affinity by comparing it to the western concept of predetermination and once again the westerner might have the “aha” look on his face.

But I think you’re saying more. You’re saying, I am thinking, that if the level of curiosity isn’t there to the degree that the person would be so inclined to seek for him or herself the experience of eastern thought, then it’s not going to make a difference if it’s explained in eastern terms, western terms, or in gobbledygook. His or her mind is simply not mapped in such a way. Yes?

[liquidangel]

Yes. But not mapped in such a way because of 'predetermination". And of course that doesn’t mean that it cannot be mapped in such a way. You know, the mind is malleable.

A

[Uccisore]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen my name used so much in a post. The problems with Eastern philosophy is that it tries to get away with things that people in the West don’t let each other get away with, basically. If I tried to defend Christianity by saying that there’s no such thing as Truth, and that Jesus didn’t mean anything at all by what He said, but you’d better believe Him anyway, or other such obvious paradox/contradiction, the skeptics would never let me get away with that. The same goes for any system of Western philosophy, where we try to justify things by reason or evidence and so on.
Eastern philosophy plays by different rules, or so it seems. You can say things that contradict, or refuse to defend positions, or resort to “nobody knows” at the drop of a hat, and as long as it puts the audience in a certain mindset, it’s supposedly ok. It’s poetry, in other words. I think the first thing to examine would be the actual goals of Eastern thought. It is actually to discover the ultimate nature of things, to get at the truth? Or is it about contentment, and ‘right living’? Or, is it about something else?

 I do agree with oreso, that if it's worth hearing, it can be stated plainly. I think the wording disguises it's simplicity and lack of profundity, and serves to make the metaphor more flowery. 

As to language issues. I can certainly understand someone from the East, who’s first language was Mandarin, having a hard time putting some of the more esoteric concepts of his mysticism into English so I can understand him. I grant that.
However, the people that I refered to as speaking ‘gobbledegook’ aren’t all like that. People who otherwise seem to be fluent at English, perhaps to the degree that they are native English speakers, still speak gobbledegook. If they claim to believe the tenets of Eastern philosophy, and they ‘think in English’ so to speak, they should be able to say what it is they think is true.

And finally:

Xunzian:
East: If we accept A, then naturally it follows that . . .

If anything were ever put so simply in my experiences with Eastern philosophy, then I wouldn't be having the problem I'm having.  Well, unless A is related to do with one hand clapping, or 'being what is and is not' or something.

[Xunzian]

Ucci,
You are partially right in terms of the goals of eastern philosophy. In my understanding, it is about correct living rather than how the universe works. As to basic precepts being outlined in eastern philosophy, it occasionally happens. Emptiness, in buddhism is one. They accept that reality is an illusion. This prevents the ‘inductive fallacy’ that people complain about in Science, because reality isn’t real, so why should it ever happen the same way again . . . not the best start for how the universe works. However, it can be a great start for how to live life, the ultimate goal of Buddhism. Check out the 4 noble truths. They clearly outline what they are talking about.

In Daoism, they accept that the Dao is unknowable, but is represented in closeness to nature. Starting out with the idea that you can’t know anything is a terrible start for understanding the universe, but can lead to a life of moderation. Or, it can lead to nothing going right at all and man reverting back to his animalistic state . . . But most Daoists would consider that a good thing shakes head. Check out ‘On Heaven’ in the Zhuangzi, it is fairly straightforward in its assertions.

Then there is legalism. Read Han Feizi, that is pretty darned straightforward.

Mohism: Pretty crazy, but they developed the proto-logic I mentioned, so it isn’t too hard to read and what they are saying is clearly laid out. . . It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. See: Mozi.

Confucianism: Lots of reading here, but good stuff. Start with some overviews. D.C. Lau has a very good introduction in the Analects and the Mencius that I’d recommend. Lays it out pretty clearly. Knoblauch’s Xunzi is AWESOME and really well laid out, but you need a little more background before that info has context.

[tentative]

Just a quick gloss: The attraction of Dao for me was upon first reading, the words simply fit what I was feeling/thinking. I kept saying yes, well of course, thats right. I was ready to receive.

Whether eastern or western, the curiosity and the willingness to explore must be there. There is no way of explaining anything to someone who already knows how it is. There are many living in eastern cultures who don’t ‘get it’ because they are not ready to receive.

We talk of the Dao as a philosophy, but as LA has suggested, it is a lot more than that. The Way is thinking/feeling. It is affective/cognitive. It isn’t just a philosophical treatise. I tend to emphasize the cognitive here because all we have is words in this medium, and that brings its own set of problems, but there is no cognitive validity without the affective. Adlerian has pointed out that many use eastern thought in coercive ways, and those vulnerable can easily be swayed, but this is true of any ideological position, eastern or western.

Just a thought: If we really practiced what we say we understand, this thread wouldn’t be happening. Paradox anyone?

JT

[tentative]

Uccisore,

If I tried to defend Christianity by saying that there’s no such thing as Truth, and that Jesus didn’t mean anything at all by what He said, but you’d better believe Him anyway, or other such obvious paradox/contradiction, the skeptics would never let me get away with that. The same goes for any system of Western philosophy, where we try to justify things by reason or evidence and so on.

And from a western POV, you’d be absolutely right. If you hear or read an eastern statement that there is no truth, what is being said is that there is no ontological ‘out there’ truth. The statement is saying that there is no truth outside of one’s own experience, which in a
processual universe is not only ‘true’ but quite logical. This is exactly and precisely the problem. If your world view is that of a single creator/created universe,(what I keep calling the one-behind-many POV) then that statement sounds either paradoxical or contradictory.

Eastern thinking does not deny reason or evidence, it simply acknowledges that reason and evidence are a construct and that there is more to reality than reason.

There is nothing deliberately obscure about eastern thought, you just have to put on a different head for a bit in order to see it.

JT

[Bob]

Hello Jerry,

I came across this from Uccisore. I think it’s very important:
Uccisore wrote:
So many times when I try to discuss eastern philosophy with someone, they absolutely refuse to speak plainly. Maybe it’s because I’m too impatient, dull-witted or clever to bother trying to pull meaning from what they say, or maybe it’s because they are too caught up with their own self-image as a guru on a mountain to speak plain English, but whatever the reason, there’s a huge communication break down. Many people in the West, even critically thinking people, tend to think of ‘Eastern religion’ as a bunch of profound-sounding koans and gobbledegook.

In our scientific age, there is a real requirement of a purely external significance of words. People don’t want to be spending time contemplating or interpreting, they want it “straight”. Perhaps it has to do with the general speed at which we are travelling. Language is becoming abbreviated and a kind of screen shorthand is taking over. We need quick information for a quick reaction and have no time for anything else.

Looking at “things from a sales and marketing perspective”, you forget that those steeped in mysticism and eastern religion or philosophy are not on a campaign to sell their ideas. In fact, it would be a case of “throwing pearls to the swine”. Anyone here speaking from the perspective of an eastern philosophy shares with people, but isn’t concerned with whether you “buy” it. In fact, that would be comparable to someone offering a monastic life to someone who is only looking for bed-and-breakfast.

a major rule that we have in marketing is that if the people aren’t getting the message, the problem is not with the people…the problem is with the message and how it is being delivered. Believing otherwise is arrogance.

Since someone who is arrogant is someone who has “a feeling or assumption of one’s superiority toward others”, I think that you are on the wrong track. Often, someone who is humble but steeped in an eastern tradition is accused of this – especially if you don’t meet or experience that person. There are restrictions on our individual perceptual systems. Due to our limited brain capacity, we must process information selectively an when presented with information from two different methods of delivery i.e. visual and auditory, our perceptual system processes only that which it believes to be most relevant. If you select a different kind of information over eastern philosophy, what can the Sage do about it? What does he want to do about it?

Now, I use the word mysticism and talk of Eastern philosophy but the same goes for western brands of mysticism. Christian Mysticism suffers from the same problem, it seems to me, as I am sure Uccisore would agree.

Let me allow Origen to speak, the most powerful mind of early Christianity (185-254):
“If you try to reduce the divine meaning to the purely external significance of the words, the Word will have no reason to come down to you. It will return to its secret dwelling, which is contemplation that is worthy of it. For it has wings, this divine meaning, given to it by the Holy Spirit who is its guide … But to be unwilling ever to rise above the letter, never to give up feeding on the literal sense, is the mark of falsehood.” (Origen, Commentary on Proverbs, 23)

Contemplation has its value, even if people have no time for it today.

Shalom

[Nick_A]

Hi Uccisore

The problems with Eastern philosophy is that it tries to get away with things that people in the West don’t let each other get away with, basically. If I tried to defend Christianity by saying that there’s no such thing as Truth, and that Jesus didn’t mean anything at all by what He said, but you’d better believe Him anyway, or other such obvious paradox/contradiction, the skeptics would never let me get away with that. The same goes for any system of Western philosophy, where we try to justify things by reason or evidence and so on.

If you consider that Christianity asserts your helplessness, your nothingness in comparison to your potential, of course it is insulting and people demand proofs. Who, on the other hand, wants to argue with a philosophy that asserts how wonderful you are once you let go? Christianity asserts that as you are, you cannot become yourself and need help from above requiring one to become open to it at the expense of their self importance. Is it any surprise that people go berserk over this?

In these times when self esteem is so highly regarded, how many will desire to become open to the experience of truth at the expense of the pleasure acquired through imagined self importance and vanity? Escapism is much more inviting. Of course if you read things like the life of Milarepa, it becomes obvious that eastern thought is not necessarily escapism just like Christianity isn’t Christendom.

You will always be put in the position to defend your conception of Christianity since people know that it asserts man’s helplessness which is extremely insulting during these times of celebrated self importance.

Often when people read sacred Eastern texts it feels like a shot of good scotch going down. Who can argue with this? Of course the concern is for what can happen in the continuance of this delightful ritual especially as it becomes fuel for ones egotism which is another topic.

[Tab]

Well, I’ve read quite a bit of the Dao, and like Tentative, identified very quickly with some of the passages, they resonated with something, and rather than convincing through logic or rhetoric, circumvented the usual slew of skeptical firewalls, and went straight through to the core. It was if I had known exactly these things, but hadn’t known I’d known them. Properly mystical. Not bad for something roughly 2000+ years old.

The whole way-making business, which is very important to me - the concept of destinationless journey tempering the soul - and the emphasis on appreciating process somewhat passively, rather than more actively studying stasis is what makes East so hard for the West to swallow I think. We are such active little sods over here. Prod it, poke it, shoot it, real action heroes. Makes us feel better to do something about something. To look constantly outward rather than in.

Western thinkers tend to tell you this is this and that is that and you’d better believe me buddy beacuse if A–>B then a/b (whatever that means) whereas the dao spends a lot of time telling you what a way-maker is not, and leaves you a little more leeway to decide for yourself what it is, and how to go about it. It let’s you chew your own rice, rather than putting it into a blender for you, ready made. Which is again perhaps a freedom that rests uneasily in a society of increasingly spoon-fed babes.

It is a regime of thought that does actually require the ‘follower’ to have done something personally consequential, to at some point along the line have taken a true leap of faith not in something external, but of faith simply in self, for it to be truly appreciated and easily absorbed, it is a set of teachings and observations that requires you to put up or shut up both meta-physically and physically.

I think that unless you have already travelled under your own psychic steam to a certain place in your life and heart, the dao will seem empty, sparse, and un-nourishing. But if you have already aquired an internal text of your own, and read the dao, then what is external, and what is internal meet and complete eachother, and it is this that produces the almost audiable ‘click’ of sudden, seemingly miraculous, understanding.

Not so much a letting go, but more a simple letting be, of self, and that which surrounds you.

The karma business, rightly bugs the shit out of the West, with its implications of predeterminism and whatnot, but I think that it is misrepresented, and is perhaps just a general awareness that what you do now, what you think in this instant, and the consequences of that thought or action ripple out perhaps further than Western minds would wish, and not just outwards, but also inwards shaping internal and external as one.

Or something like that, for me, at least.

Tab.

[Jerry]

@liquidangel

Yes. But not mapped in such a way because of 'predetermination". And of course that doesn’t mean that it cannot be mapped in such a way. You know, the mind is malleable.

But predetermination is at least a way one could help explain it to a western mind. They would ask about karma, and one could say, well it’s like the western concept of predetermination, but not quite. At least the western mind has a starting point.

But your larger point seems to be that unless the western mind in question (any mind for that matter) has a karmic affinity to experience something of eastern thought, then the conversation is useless, outside of just pleasant, interesting conversation. Useless, that is to say, in regards to getting the western mind to see what you see.

Without a profound enough curiosity, a certain, let’s say, sincerity of the heart, no amount of explanation will enable the seeker to find. The seeker needs to desire sincerely to experience what you experience.

But can you sympathize with Ucc and understand his difficulty when, in perhaps a moment of sincere interest, he confesses a real desire to understand and, asking for clarity, is met by, just to pick an example out of somewhere, “ever desireless, one can see the mystery.”

His difficulty with this wouldn’t exist, I am thinking you believe, if he had a karmic affinity towards Tao (to pick one train of eastern thought). Simply put, Tao will resonate with somebody or it won’t. Desiring the resonation won’t make it happen, and no amount of explanation can replace the inherent curiosity, the affinity that needs to be there – somewhere – from the start.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing. We all have inherent affinities. Whether they’re karmic, genetic, or what have you. But I will say that I came to an understanding of Christian mysticism using the tools of the western philosopher. It made sense to me in reasonable terms that could be explained, although it was a long and arduous process. Now, from that point forward, it was quite a different story. And from that point forward, I can’t even explain it (which is why those kinds of eastern statements have a solid ring for me). But the rational arguments took me to the start of the path, placed me on the doorstep, let’s say.

Is that possible with eastern thought? Or is it, as I am coming to suspect, a simple matter of one either “gets it” and it resonates right away, or one doesn’t “get it” and it doesn’t resonate, and may never?

[TheAdlerian]

Thirsty,

I posted that with the thought in mind that most “gurus” sometimes do things like trick people out of money and promise cures for diseases, and so forth. I wanted to illustrate that all eastern philosophy isn’t babble.

[Jerry]

@Bob

Looking at “things from a sales and marketing perspective”, you forget that those steeped in mysticism and eastern religion or philosophy are not on a campaign to sell their ideas. In fact, it would be a case of “throwing pearls to the swine”. Anyone here speaking from the perspective of an eastern philosophy shares with people, but isn’t concerned with whether you “buy” it.

Hi, Bob.

I understand this and as I review the thread it occurs to me that maybe I should have delineated between those steeped in mysticism and eastern religion who are perfectly content in their thoughts and perfectly willing to keep them to themselves, and those steeped in mysticism and eastern religion who nevertheless find themselves discussing these ideas amongst others. These discussions take place all the time, in classrooms, study groups, philosophy message boards, etc.

If one finds oneself engaged in such a discussion and is coming at things from an eastern or mystical worldview, then it seems to me as though that person really ought to have some kind of handle on how he can convey his ideas so that they are understood by his audience.

My point, based in large part on Uccisore’s quote from my initial post above, is that I don’t think this is being effectively done.

Since someone who is arrogant is someone who has “a feeling or assumption of one’s superiority toward others”, I think that you are on the wrong track.

I accept this. I probably am on the wrong track. Still, you have to see sometimes how it looks to a westerner when he asks for clear explanations and gets essentially an answer along the lines of, “Well, you really wouldn’t understand it and I cannot explain it to you.”

[Disciple_of_light]

.

@Jerry

But can you sympathize with Ucc and understand his difficulty when, in perhaps a moment of sincere interest, he confesses a real desire to understand and, asking for clarity, is met by, just to pick an example out of somewhere, “ever desireless, one can see the mystery.”

Even more remarkable is when things are explained simply , many folk tend to think it cant be right , because its too simple . They dont seem to want complicated , or simple , So they are never happy really.

Crows everywhere are always black
.