Esoteric Philosophy

JLN

"Knowledge" and "Truth" indeed take on different connotations within the esoteric tradition. At the risk of repeating myself it seems to me that the essence of these concepts within the "normal" worldview of "objective reality" is their relationship to "prediction and control". But within esotericism, we either repudiate control (let go) or observe transcendence of "time" within which such control has meaning.

truth
Yes, Fresco. The truth value of mystical and artistic knowledge has no implications for engineering, only for personal healing and fulfillment
.

Well I doubt that JLNobody.

truth
Twyvel, are you are sure you read me correctly? I would be very surprised to see readings from Huang Po, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, or Kuhlewind in the curriculum of an engineering school.

JLNobody

Correct JL, but I can see engineering being individual absorbed, discovered, re-invented and learnt in an interior atmosphere and context of mystical, spiritual inclinations and aspirations, i.e. by spiritually, mystically oriented individuals.

Does that make a difference? Are the sciences in general like all else shaped and defined and reinvented by the new recruits?


Engineering can influence art. Can art influence engineering? Is architecture art? Is creating, inventing, discovering a cure for a disease art?

Engineering and science can influence mysticism through discoveries, insights and affirmations to some extent. If the spiritual aspect of humans actually exists, i.e. a transcendent self (?) etc, science---scientists is/are soaked in it.

I think some of what Huang Po, Krishnamurti, Ramana and other sages have said will eventually be affirmed/confirmed by science, do you?


Well that was my line of thinking, i.e. no discipline is learnt, taught, practiced, researched etc. in isolation.

truth
Twyvel, if your ideal of a unification of engineering and mysticism were realized, it would be the most revolutionary revolution ever. It just seems to me that engineering is posited on rules that assume a positivistic view of the world. The physics underlying engineering can, of course, go beyond engineering--see the rapport between Krishnamurti and David Bohm (sp?), even though the latter is looked upon warily by his professional colleagues. Art CAN influence architecture; indeed, the latter IS an ar form, even though it depends on the principles of engineering (and their grounding in physics) as much as it does aesthetic design. Wow! There might be your connection. And, I guess, the most theoretical levels of physics are somewhat mystical in their implications--sometimes. Nice that you are going against the grain of common sense assumptions. That's how great insights emerge, syntheses of theses and anti-theses.

JLNobody

It may happen sooner then we think, i.e. the merging of science and mysticism, and probably already has happened to some degree, i.e. on an individual basis.


Though the statement:

"When all the conditions are present for an event to take place it not only will happen it has to."


Doesn't appear to apply to emlightenment. I guess something cannot "begin" to happen if it is already taking place.

If we are already enlightened yet that is not what we experience then enlightenment is not an experience as such.

truth
I don't know, of course, Tywvel, but I have my doubts. It's like hoping science will someday create compassion in humans.
Regarding your very subtle comment that "enlightenment is not an experience as such," consider this from Robert Linssen: "The fact that we are Reality, and that we have never ceased so to be, and that in consequence...realization [i.e., satori] is but liberation from a mirage, is frequently brought out in all the works on Zen. Because a mirage is in a certain sense non-existent the fact of being delivered from it is--from the point of view of the Sage--non-existent." Consistent with this is the Buddha's wonderful pronouncement: "I have truly obtained nothing from complete, unexcelled enlightenment."

Yes, JLNobody

The problem is the mirage wants enlightenment,

JLN and Twyvel

Re: Esotericism and Science(inc Engineering).

Two paths for exploration are 1. Rudolf Steiner
2. The Krishnamurti-Bohm Dialogues. I cant remeber specifics but I think Steiner was into architecture and botany and David Bohm suffered some rejection from mainstream physicists with his ideas about "Implicate Order".

Another "renegade" who is not quite an esotericist is Rupert Sheldrake with his concept of "morphic resonance"...and there are several books similar to the "Tao of Physics" (Chapra) which have been criticised by Richard Dawkins.

fresco wrote:



Yes, fresco,

Re: boundaries+self

There's no such thing as non-local. There's no transient self moving from group to group only appearance of one. So the self is not involved in action, it IS the action.

Meaning there is no transcendence except transcendence from appearance or mirage.

There's movement with no mover. Or, The mover is the movement.

Oops, meant to post this in rufio's thread,

Twyvel

I (?) agree with your (?) position in principle but for the purposes of the other thread it might be best to adopt a "lower level" concept of objects and actors, and see where this leads. Heliotrope actually presents a good argument for the non-mystical scenario.

truth
It is so easy for us to lose ourselves in the labyrinth of "selves." There is a large literature on the sociology of self (the generation and maintenance of self-conceptions, social identities, etc.) within the "school" of Symbolic Interactionism. That "self" is not the same as the Ego of the psychoanalytic model of the mind, that mediator between the demands of the socially-generated Superego and the demands of the biologically-generated Id. And both differ from the self discussed by the Buddha and other mystics. The latter self refers more or less to the delusional feeling of separateness from the world, the feeling of an inner-dwelling homuncular being, not totally unlike the notion of a gaseous soul. These three "levels" of discourse use the notion of self" in useful ways; but they must be kept separate if we are to avoid misunderstanding and confusion.

truth
Twyvel, you'll resonate with this comment by Malraux in The Walnut Trees of Altenberg: "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random amng the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness."

profound