I just did a preliminary reading of this debate of 2004. Very good to have it, because in this debate all the relevant issues were brought up. In that sense, it is all there to be seen.
David starts with a sort of textbook description of enlightenment. It is nicely written out in paragraphs 4 5 6 and 7. The view, as it is described, concurs with many others I have read over the years in various yoga books. For example, one could read Yogananda's description of his samadhi experience in Autobiography of a Yogi and find a great deal in common with the description offered by David. To me, without going back and searching the records, it is standard. It is also 'reasonable', insofar as it makes sense; that it appears possible. Sure, why not?
But then, it seems, he employs an odd manoeuvre: he makes an assertion of what enlightenment is, and what happens to one who has the experience, but then backs away from 'ownership' of that experience, saying it would be petty to discuss himself. But, anyone could make a statement about 'ultimate reality', including myself. All I would need to do is cut and past those paragraphs and present them to other people as 'absolute values' worthy of attainment, without ever really answering the question: Well, that may be true, but have you realized that state yourself?
The problem is pretty clear: there is absolutely no way to verify David's experience. There is no way to measure it. To defend an 'abstract thing', an intangible 'thing' is as easy as pie. Pick the wildest assertion, assert it in cogent/sophistical language, and then sit back and watch the fireworks. Anybody can make grand assertions about unverifiable things, and as David does imply that he has this level of realization. All the rest of us, myself included, though I have had certain (inner) experiences that alluded to a state of mind that I though of as 'enlightened' and at least have some little thing to go on (or think I do), have no other means at our disposal but to analyse David's claim of enlightenment through a process of analysis of his behavior, and sets of other values and attitudes that he (and his school of thought) has embraced.
And this, it seems to me, is the line pursued by Robert, and the specific line he uses is some 'reference texts' (from specific schools of Buddhism) which, according to those texts, describe a platform upon which (logically and ethically) enlightenment---if it is 'true enlightenment'---rests. Again, he does it through a comparison to scriptural references, whereas I would not pursue this line myself.
His other line of revelation---
revealing,
opening up to view,
taking the lid off---is to question David's connections with the doctrines of Weininger, and this opens up a vast can of worms. Now, this 'enlightenment', if you will, is 'playing in a theatre near you' whereas, in fact,
it never played in our Occidental towns, if you get my drift.
The whole notion of Enlightenment is oriental, is Indian, in fact (and is a branch of a wide and full doctrine, cohesive at times, rife with internal conflict at others). So, now we have a Western man, handling an experience of (Eastern) enlightenment, claiming it as a universal state, and locating the 'symptoms' of enlightenment in certain Western figures. This tremendously complexifies the whole spiritual undertaking. If once it might have been neutral, it is no longer neutral
at all.
(Some of this reminds me of long-ongoing discussions I have had with Jungians, who have asserted that the 'individuated' person will do thus-and-such in society, will support one thing (say democracy) while condemning another (socialism, etc.).
While no one seems to claim that Weininger is 'enlightened', nevertheless one must deeply consider the implications if an enlightened man refers to the ideas and the work of a specific and modern figure.
Acutely modern. Acutely involved with some extremely modern issues with profound bearing on the immediate present, on our now. So, to take an extreme example, what if Ramana Maharshi, along with his Bhagavad-Gita kept also a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf? (I am deliberately playing a little unfair, but the overall point is valid). If I say I am 'enlightened' but then refer to all kinds of questionable gender issues; or issues that hinge dangerously into racial issues, political issues, not to mention the whole
Jewish issue, it tends to cast my 'enlightenment' in a certain light, or certainly tends to complicate it. It is not unheard of: Pahamahansa Yogananda 'condemned' the French to historical irrelevancy for their 'effeminacy'.
(It is interesting to note that as a form of Protestantism this peculiar conflation of Eastern 'enlightenment' doctrines with Christian doctrines is not far fetched, not at all. Christianity really has to take a stand on the Jewsih question, and in Luther it certainly did. What is new here is this melding of enlightenment doctrines with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Weininger---Whoe Nelly one might exclaim!)
But the main point here is that along with a thoroughly unverifiable assertion (no more than a description, even a fantasy if you wish) of an 'enlightened state of mind' (which you might get from a strong dose of ayahuasca too...), one also gets with QRS-H some very charged politics; some very definitive statements about the modern condition, etc. And look at some of the people who gravitate toward the site. True, that is associative culpability, but one can stand back and take a look at it. My first posts on GF took place on a thread dedicated to anti-semitic diatribes. I don't have a problem per se with that, because I know that anti-semitism is a real thing and exists. But you do have to wonder: Why would such threads be supported? I.e. supported in the sense that they weren't deleted? Compare Laird's embryonic emotionalism (according to QRS) and his being asked to leave
with all that has not been asked to leave. When the cleanup occurs, look at what gets swept away.
Do we have other examples of 'enlightened men' (or women) who have taken sides on contentious issues? Paramahansa Yogananda loved Gandhi, for example, so he chose a pretty neutral vehicle. Other than that, he kept his doctrines free of politics, at least mostly.
In any case, back to the subject at hand. I see the angle Robert is taking, and I see why he takes it. I can't go that route 1) because I am not 'enlightened' and so can't make statements about it, and 2) because I am not a Buddhist.
Yet, my arguments are quite akin to Robert's. I am extremely leery of these people and their core and 'orbital' doctrines. It's like Madeline's mother in the children's storybook (French children's story). She wakes up in the middle of the night with this feeling that 'something is not right'. I am of course playing on the (loathsome) idea of a woman's intuition, ha ha ha.
So, when you get enlightened, according to David, 'you spontaneously do God's will', and so one assumes that David, because enlightened, is 'doing God's will' in all he says and does---and in all the ancillary ideas that are presented, too?
What else might GF sponser?
;-)
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Not related to anything at all, just came across it...