mercoledì 14 novembre 2012

Tao mentale, conservativo e radicale

Bruce Torrence, Courtyard at Pena Palace 2, Panoramic Photograph, 2011

Nel proseguire la descrizione della mente e della coscienza, Tart discute i fondamenti della questione definendo tre termini centrali - consapevolezza, coscienza e mente - e descrivendo due modelli radicalmente diversi per questi tre insiemi di strutture complesse. Nel primo, l'unico ammissibile dalle scienze classiche - come le neuroscienze - i tre termini sono prodotti emergenti delle funzioni cerebrali, influenzati da una realtà fisica esterna fissa ed oggettiva. Nel secondo, uno di questi - la consapevolezza - viene considerato come "esterno" alle funzioni cerebrali, e la realtà fisica esterna non viene più considerata come "fissa" ma come una relazione ricursiva circolare tra le funzioni cerebrali e "l'esterno".
In questi due modelli si incentrano le due visioni radicalmente opposte tra scienza occidentale e - ad esempio - le tradizioni orientali, ognuna con le proprie evidenze "sperimentali". Nella prima la mente e la coscienza sono attualmente considerate come fenomeni complessi emergenti della struttura cerebrale, del sistema nervoso e del corpo; nella seconda esiste una qualità che - in parte - è indipendente dal corpo, e quindi non spiegabile in termini fisico/chimico-neurologici; un vero e proprio "incarnamento della mente". I due modelli sono completamente incompatibili tra loro: per la scienza occidentale l'esistenza di una caratteristica mentale che provenga dall'"esterno" del cervello è un'assurdità, così come per la scienza tradizionale orientale - basata sull'esperienza individuale - il credere che la consapevolezza di fondo provenga dall'attività cerebrale.  

Conservative and Radical Views of the Mind

An almost universal theory in Western scientific circles, sunk to the level of an implicit belief and thus controlling us effectively, is that awareness is a product of brain functioning. No brain functioning — no awareness, no consciousness. This is the conservative view of the mind. It is dangerous as an implicit belief for two reasons. First, many experiences in various altered states of consciousness are inconsistent with this theory, but implicit faith in the conservative view makes us liable to distort our perception of these phenomena. Second, parapsychological data suggest that awareness is at least partially outside brain functioning, a condition that leads to very different views of human nature. The radical view of the mind sees awareness as this something extra and postulates that physical reality can sometimes be directly affected by our belief systems. We must be open minded about the radical view to guard against maintaining too narrow and too culturally conditioned a view of the mind.
Although in general speech we tend to use the terms awareness and consciousness to mean basically the same thing, I use them here with somewhat different meanings. Awareness refers to the basic knowledge that something is happening, to perceiving or feeling or cognizing in its simplest form. Consciousness generally refers to awareness in a much more complex way; consciousness is awareness as modulated by the structure of the mind. Mind refers to the totality of both inferable and potentially experiencable phenomena of which awareness and consciousness are components. These are not precise definitions because the three key words — awareness, consciousness, and mind — are not simple things. But they are realities, and we must deal with them whether or not we can give them precise logical definitions. Since logic is only one product of the total functioning of the mind, it is no wonder that we cannot arrive at a logical definition of the mind or consciousness or awareness. The part cannot define the whole.
Awareness and consciousness, then, can be seen as parts of a continuum. I would use the word awareness to describe, for instance, my simple perception of the sound of a bird outside my window as I write. I would use the word consciousness to indicate the complex of operations that recognizes the sound as a bird call, that identifies the species of bird, and that takes account of the fact that the sound is coming in through my open window. So consciousness refers to a rather complex system that includes awareness as one of its basic ingredients, but is more complex than simple awareness itself. Few psychologists today would argue with the statement that consciousness is awareness resulting from the brain's functioning. But if you ask what is the basic nature of awareness, the simple basic behind the more complex entity consciousness, you meet the common assumption in Western culture generally and scientific culture in particular that awareness is a "product" of the brain. When psychology was fond of chemical analogies, awareness was thought of as a sort of "secretion" by the brain.
I believe that seeing consciousness as a function of the brain is sound, but I think that explicitly or implicitly assuming that awareness is only a function of the brain, as accepted as that theory is, can be a hindrance, for two reasons.
First, as psychology deals more and more with the phenomena of altered states of consciousness, it will more and more have to deal with phenomena that do not fit well in a conceptual scheme that says awareness is only a product of the brain. Experiences of apparently paranormal abilities like telepathy, of feeling that one's mind leaves one's body, of mystical union with aspects of the universe outside oneself, of supernormal knowledge directly given in altered states, fit more comfortably into schemes that do not assume that awareness is only a function of the brain. I have nothing against competent attempts to fit such phenomena into our dominant Western scientific framework, but the attempts I have seen so far have been most inadequate and seem to work mainly by ignoring major aspects of these altered states phenomena. Thus the assumption that awareness is only a function of the brain, especially as it becomes implicit, tends to distort our view of real phenomena that happen in altered states. We dismiss their possible reality a priori. We cannot build a science when we start with such a selected view of the data.
The second reason for questioning this assumption is the existence of first-class scientific data to suggest that awareness may be something other than a product of the brain. I refer to excellent evidence of parapsychological phenomena like telepathy, evidence that shows that the mind can sometimes function in ways that are "impossible" in terms of our current, physical view of the world. "Impossible" means only that these phenomena are paraconceptual, that our conceptual schemes are inadequate because they exclude this part of reality. These same conceptual schemes underlie the belief that awareness is only a product of the brain, and if we question these conceptual schemes we question that assumption
This view that awareness is only a function of the brain — the conservative or physicalistic view of the mind — is diagrammed in Figure:

The brain (and nervous system and body) are depicted as a structure that has hardware qualities on the one hand and software qualities on the other. The hardware qualities are those inherent in the physical makeup of the brain itself, as dictated by the physical laws that govern reality. This dictation of limitation is shown as a one-way arrow from the physical world to the brain. The software qualities are the programmable aspects of the brain, the capacities for recording data and building up perception, evaluation, and action patterns in accordance with programming instructions given by the culture. The arrows of influence are two-way here, for even though the programming is largely done by the culture to the individual, occasionally the individual modifies some aspects of the culture. Awareness is shown as an emergent quality of the brain, and so awareness is ultimately limited by the hardware and by particular software programs of the brain. Consciousness is the individual's experience of awareness diffused through a tiny fraction of the structure of the brain and nervous system.
The radical view of the mind is diagrammed in Figure:

Two changes have been made to incorporate the radical view. First, awareness is shown as something that comes from outside the structure of the physical brain, as well as something influenced by the structure of the brain (thus giving consciousness) and the cultural programming. In religious terms, this is the idea of a soul or life/mind principle that uses (and is used by) the body. This is a most unpopular idea in scientific circles, but, as I have argued elsewhere, there is enough scientific evidence that consciousness is capable of temporarily existing in a way that seems independent of the physical body to warrant giving the idea serious consideration and doing some research on it.
The second change incorporated in the radical view is shown by the two-way arrow from the physical world to the hardware structure of the brain. The idea, held in many spiritual systems of thought that have dealt with altered states of consciousness, is that physical reality is not a completely fixed entity, but something that may actually be shaped in some fundamental manner by the individual's beliefs about it. I am not speaking here simply of perceptions of reality, but of the actual structure of reality. Pearce, for example, describes an experience as a youth where he accidentally entered an altered state of consciousness in which he knew he was impervious to pain or injury. In front of witnesses he ground out the tips of glowing cigarettes on his cheeks, palms, and eyelids. He felt no pain, and there was no sign of physical injury. The conventional view can easily account for the lack of pain: by control of the structures involved in sensing pain (nerve tracts and certain brain areas), pain would not be perceived. But a glowing cigarette tip has a temperature of about 1400F, and his skin should have been severely burned, despite his state of consciousness. From the radical point of view, his beliefs about reality in the altered state actually altered the nature of physical reality.
To argue for or against the radical view of the mind would take a book in itself, and this is not the one. I want to emphasize that the radical view of the mind, in various forms, is often reported as an experience from altered state of consciousness. If we are going to study states of consciousness adequately, we hall have to confront the radical view, not automatically dismiss it as an illusion or a product of inferior brain functioning, but take it as data. I would personally prefer not to: I do not like the radical view that our belief systems may actually alter the nature of reality even though I can comfortably accept parapsychological data that show that reality is more complex than our current physical world-view believes. But we should stay open to that view and make a decision for or against its probability on scientific grounds, not simply because we have been trained to believe that there is an ultimate, immutable physical reality. Don Juan put it pithily: "To believe that the world is only as you think it is stupid"
I sympathize with reader who finds himself rejecting the radical view of the mind. I suggest, however, that he honestly ask himself, "Have I rejected this view as a result of careful and extensive study of the evidence for and against it, or because I have been trained to do so and rewarded by social approval for doing so?"

lunedì 12 novembre 2012

verrà il Tao e avrà i tuoi occhi


Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi -
questa morte che ci accompagna
dal mattino alla sera, insonne,
sorda, come un vecchio rimorso
o un vizio assurdo. I tuoi occhi
saranno una vana parola,
un grido taciuto, un silenzio.
Così li vedi ogni mattina
quando su te sola ti pieghi
nello specchio. O cara speranza,
quel giorno sapremo anche noi
che sei la vita e sei il nulla
Per tutti la morte ha uno sguardo.
Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi.
Sarà come smettere un vizio,
come vedere nello specchio
riemergere un viso morto,
come ascoltare un labbro chiuso.
Scenderemo nel gorgo muti.

«Ho lavorato, ho dato poesia agli uomini, ho condiviso le pene di molti»
Santo Stefano Belbo (CN)

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - III

René Magritte, La lunette d'approche (The Telescope), 1963
Oil on canvas - The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
I have now lined up a series of pieces of data – hints about how the world is – and all the pieces share the notion of not communicating something under some circumstances. It is important that the Ancient Mariner not tell himself that he is blessing the snakes, and especially that he not define a purpose of the act of blessing. He must bless them unaware.” ... The Indians at Iowa City shall not be photographed. The camera shall not point at their ritual actions to make them see themselves and tell the world about these mysteries. I am irritated by Joe‘s interrupting my psychedelic trip while he sets up a tape recorder, and still more irritated when he asks me to repeat what I had begun to say, which obviously could only be done with extra consciousness. And so on.
I cannot even say clearly how many examples of the same phenomenon – this avoidance of communication – are contained in the stories I have set side by side...
We find over and over again in different parts of the world and different epochs of religious thought a recurrent emphasis on the notion that discovery, invention, and knowledge in general must be regarded as dangerous. Many examples are familiar: Prometheus was chained to the rock for inventing the domestication of fire, which he stole from Phoebus Apollo; Adam was punished for eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge; and so on.
Greek mythology proposes the danger of knowledge again and again, especially cross-sex knowledge, which is always fatal. The guilty man is torn to pieces, and the Greeks even had a word for this fate, which we might Anglicize to say that he is sparagamated. Examples include Actaeon, who accidentally spied on Artemis bathing and was torn apart by her dogs, and Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by nymphs after his return from Hades, where he went to bring back Eurydice. He looked over his shoulder at her as he was leading her back and therefore lost her forever. There is also Pentheus, the disciplinarian king who was led by Bacchus to spy on the Bacchae in Euripides‘ play of that name. The god had the king dress up as a woman and climb a tree to watch the women‘s festivities. They detected him, uprooted the tree, and tore him to pieces. His mother was among the women, and in the final scene of the play she comes back from the mountains carrying her son‘s head, screaming about the “lion” that they had killed. Her father, Cadmus, then performs an act of psychotherapy. “Who did you marry?” The queen answers. “What son was born?” Again she answers. Finally, Cadmus points to the head of Pentheus; ”Who is that?” Then the queen suddenly recognizes her son‘s head. The mythical outcome of male voyeurism is death by being torn apart. We laughingly say to children, “Curiosity killed the pussy cat,” but to the Greeks it was no laughing matter.
I believe that this is a very important and significant matter, and that noncommunication of certain sorts is needed if we are to maintain the “sacred.” Communication is undesirable, not because of fear, but because communication would somehow alter the nature of the ideas.
 There are, of course, monastic orders whose members are under constraint to avoid all verbal communication. (Why especially the verbal?) These are the so-called silent orders. But if we want to know the precise contexts of that noncommunication which is the mark of the sacred, they will not give many clues. By avoiding all speech they tell us very little.
For the moment, let us simply say that there are many matters and many circumstances in which consciousness is undesirable and silence is golden, so that secrecy can be used as a marker to tell us that we are approaching holy ground. Then if we had enough instances of the unuttered, we could begin to reach for a definition of the “Sacred.” At a later stage, it will be possible to juxtapose with the stories given here examples of necessary noncommunication from the field of biology, which I believe to be formally comparable. What is it that men and women hold sacred? Are there perhaps processes in the working of all living systems such that, if news or information of these processes reaches other parts of the system, the working together of the whole will be paralyzed or disrupted? What does it mean to hold something sacred? And why does it matter?

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - II

venerdì 9 novembre 2012

Tao qusai oridnato

esperienza del Tao cognitivista

© Igor Morski
Il successo accademico dell'ipotesi cognitivista alla mente ed alla coscienza e la sua applicazione in numerosi campi ha fatto passare in secondo piano un fatto radicale: la sua totale discrepanza tra la cognizione ed esperienza:

Cognitivism and Human Experience
What implications does this cognitivist research program have for an understanding of our experience? We wish to emphasize two related points: (1) cognitivism postulates mental or cognitive processes of which we are not only unaware but of which we cannot be aware, and (2) cognitivism is thereby led to embrace the idea that the self or cognizing subject is fundamentally fragmented or nonunified. These two points will become considerably intertwined as we proceed.
As the reader might recall, our first point has already appeared when we presented the tension between science and experience to which cognitive science gives rise. There we quoted Daniel Dennett's claim that all cognitivist theories are theories of what Dennett calls the "sub-personal level." By this phrase, Dennett means that cognitivism postulates mental (not just physical and biological) mechanisms and processes that are not accessible to the "personal level" of consciousness, especially self-consciousness. In other words, one cannot discern in conscious awareness or self-conscious introspection any of the cognitive structures and processes that are postulated to account for cognitive behavior. Indeed, if cognition is fundamentally symbolic computation, this discrepancy between personal and subpersonal immediately follows, since presumably none of us has any awareness of computing in an internal, symbolic medium when we think.
It is possible to overlook the depth of this challenge to our self-understanding, largely because of our post-Freudian belief in the unconscious. There is a difference, however, between what we usually mean by "unconscious" and the sense in which mental processes are said to be unconscious in cognitivism: we usually suppose that what is unconscious can be brought to consciousness-if not through selfconscious reflection, then through a disciplined procedure such as psychoanalysis. Cognitivism, on the other hand, postulates processes that are mental but that cannot be brought to consciousness at all. Thus we are not simply unaware of the rules that govern the generation of mental images or of the rules that govern visual processing; we could not be aware of these rules. Indeed, it is typically noted that if such cognitive processes could be made conscious, then they could not be fast and automatic and so could not function properly. In one formulation these cognitive processes are even considered to be "modular" {to comprise distinct subsystems that cannot be penetrated by conscious mental activity). Thus cognitivism challenges our conviction that consciousness and the mind either amount to the same thing or there is an essential or necessary connection between them. Of course, Freud too challenged the idea that the mind and consciousness are the same. Furthermore, he certainly realized that to distinguish between the mind and consciousness entails the disunity of the self or cognizing subject, a point to which we shall tum shortly. It is not clear, however, whether Freud took the further step of calling into question the idea that there is an essential or necessary connection between the mind and consciousness. As Dennett notes, Freud, in his argument for unconscious beliefs, desires, and motivations, left open the possibility that these unconscious processes belonged to a fragment of ourselves hidden in the depths of the psyche. Although it is not clear the extent to which Freud meant such a fragmentation literally, it is clear that cognitive science does take a literal, if not homuncular, view. As Dennett puts it, "Although the new [cognitivist] theories abound with deliberately fanciful homunculus metaphors-subsystems like little people in the brain sending messages back and forth, asking for help, obeying and volunteering-the actual subsystems are deemed to be unproblematic nonconscious bits of organic machinery, as utterly lacking in point of view or inner life as a kidney or kneecap. In other words, the characterization of these "sub-personal" systems in "fanciful homunculus metaphors" is only provisional, for eventually all such metaphors are "discharged"-they are traded in for the storm of activity among such selfless processes as neural networks or AI data structures.
Our pretheoretical, everyday conviction, however, is that cognition and consciousness-especially self-consciousness-belong together in the same domain. Cognitivism runs directly counter to this conviction: in determining the domain of cognition, it explicitly cuts across the conscious/unconscious distinction. The domain of cognition consists of those systems that must be seen as having a distinct representational level, not necessarily of those systems that are conscious. Some representational systems are, of course, conscious, but they need not be to have representations or intentional states. Thus for cognitivists, cognition and intentionality (representation) are the inseparable pair, not cognition and consciousness.
This theoretical division of the domain of cognition is considered by cognitivists to be “an empirical discovery of no small importance” and indicates, again, the remarkable mutation wrought by cognitivism. But now a problem arises: we seem to be losing our grip on something that is undeniably close and familiar-our sense of self. If consciousness-to say nothing of self-consciousness-is not essential for cognition, and if, in the case of cognitive systems that are conscious, such as ourselves, consciousness amounts to only one kind of mental process, then just what is the cognizing subject? Is it the collection of all mental processes, both conscious and unconscious? Or is it simply one kind of mental process, such as consciousness, among all the others? In either case, our sense of self is challenged, for we typically suppose that to be a self is to have a coherent and unified "point of view," a stable and constant vantage point from which to think, perceive, and act. Indeed, this sense that we have (are?) a self seems so incontrovertible that its calling into question or denial-even by science-strikes us as absurd. And yet, if someone were to turn the tables and ask us to look for the self, we would be hard pressed to find it. Dennett, as usual, makes this point with flair: “You enter the brain through the eye, march up the optic nerve, round and round the cortex, looking behind every neuron, and then before you know it, you emerge into daylight on the spike of a motor nerve impulse, scratching your head and wondering where the self is”.
Our problem, however, goes even deeper. It is one thing to be unable to find a coherent and unified self amid the furious storm of subpersonal activity. This inability would certainly challenge our sense of self, but the challenge would be limited. We could still suppose that there really is a self but that we simply cannot find it in this fashion. Perhaps, as Jean-Paul Sartre held, the self is too close, and so we cannot uncover it by turning back upon ourselves. The cognitivist challenge, however, is much more serious. According to cognitivism, cognition can proceed without consciousness, for there is no essential or necessary connection between them. Now whatever else we suppose the self to be, we typically suppose that consciousness is its central feature. It follows, then, that cognitivism challenges our conviction that the most central feature of the self is needed for cognition. In other words, the cognitivist challenge does not consist simply in asserting that we cannot find the self; it consists, rather, in the further implication that the self is not even needed for cognition.
At this point, the tension between science and experience should be obvious and tangible. If cognition can proceed without the self, then why do we nonetheless have the experience of self? We cannot simply dismiss this experience without explanation.

mercoledì 7 novembre 2012

seduti ai piedi del Tao

Isa Upanishad, Wellcome Library, London
L'enfasi delle Upanishad (lett.: seduti ai piedi del Maestro) è sulla Totalità. Ricordate, non sulla perfezione ma sulla totalità. Nel momento in cui si diventa interessati ad essere perfetti, si trova l'ego. L'ego è un perfezionista - il desiderio dell'ego è di essere perfetto - e la perfezione porta l'umanità verso l'insania.
La Totalità è completamente diversa; il suo sapore è diverso. La perfezione è nel futuro: si tratta di un desiderio. La Totalità è qui e ora: si tratta di una rivelazione. La Perfezione deve essere ottenuta, e naturalmente ogni realizzazione richiede tempo; deve essere graduale. Dovete sacrificare il presente per il futuro, l'oggi per il domani. E il domani non arriva mai; quello che arriva è sempre l'oggi.

Il Signore dimora in tutto questo Ogni cosa al mondo è tutto il mondo Se rinunci a tutto, godi tutto Non creare la ricchezza fuori di te!
All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man's possession.

Chi agisce così in questo mondo può vivere cento anni Se vivrai così, non incontrerai ostacoli e nessuna azione ti legherà.
Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man.

Tutti coloro che si oppongono al proprio Sé dopo la morte vanno nei ciechi mondi avvolti nelle tenebre chiamati mondi senza sole.
Sunless are those worlds and enveloped in blind gloom where to all they in their passing hence resort who are slayers of their souls.

L'Uno è immobile, eppure è più rapido del pensiero Egli è al di sopra di tutto, neanche gli déi possono raggiungerlo Senza muoversi, supera tutto ciò che corre In lui Agni compie la sua opera.
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind, That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Quello si muove, Quello non si muove Quello è lontano, Quello è vicino Quello è all'interno di questo, di ogni cosa Quello è all'esterno di questo, di ogni cosa.

That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
Colui che vede tutti gli esseri nel Sé e vede il Sé in tutti gli esseri, questi non odia nessuno.
But he who sees everywhere the Self in all existences and all existences in the Self, shrinks not thereafter from aught.

In colui che sa che tutti gli esseri esistono solo come Sé, in colui che così vede solo l'Uno, non c'è illusione, non c'è sofferenza.
He in whom it is the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings, for he has the perfect knowledge, how shall he be deluded, whence shall he have grief who sees everywhere oneness? 

Questi invero conosce ciò che è luminoso e immateriale, che non può essere ferito né bagnato, puro, senza peccato, il veggente, il sapiente, l'essere supremo, indipendente, che dall'origine dei tempi fa raggiungere il proprio scopo
It is He that has gone abroad — That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker, the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.

Coloro che dimorano nell'ignoranza cadono in una profonda oscurità Ma in una ancor più profonda oscurità cadono coloro che si compiacciono della conoscenza.
Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone. 

Il destino di chi coltiva la conoscenza certamente è diverso da quello di chi vive nell'ignoranza Così dicono i saggi che insegnano a conoscere Quello.
Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Knowledge, other that which comes by the Ignorance; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.

Chi conosce la saggezza e l'ignoranza vincendo l'ignoranza sconfigge la morte, coltivando la saggezza beve il nettare dell'immortalità.
He who knows That as both in one, the Knowledge and the Ignorance, by the Ignorance crosses beyond death and by the Knowledge enjoys Immortality.

Coloro che adorano gli esseri invisibi cadono in una profonda oscurità Ma in una ancor più profonda oscurità cadono coloro che si compiacciono di ciò che è visibile.
Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Non-Birth, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Birth alone.

. Il destino di chi si fonda su ciò che esiste certamente è diverso da quello di chi si fonda su ciò che non esiste Così dicono i saggi che insegnano a conoscere Quello.
Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Birth, other that which comes by the Non-Birth; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.

Chi conosce ciò che porta tutti gli esseri alla rovina, supera la rovina e la morte e beve il nettare dell'immortalità in tutti gli esseri.
He who knows That as both in one, the Birth and the dissolution of Birth, by the dissolution crosses beyond death and by the Birth enjoys Immortality.

Un velo di luce nasconde il volto della verità Ti prego, rimuovi questo velo e mostrami il vero dharma!
The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid; that do thou remove, O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth, for sight.

O sole, tu che concedi alla forza creativa il suo potere, unico Saggio, trattieni, ti prego, i tuoi raggi! Attenua il tuo splendore, perché io possa vedere la tua benedetta forma! Questo Sé simile al sole, sono io!
O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O illumining Sun, O power of the Father of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw together thy light; the Lustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold. The Purusha there and there, He am I.

Che questo corpo sia consumato, che il mio soffio si fonda con l'aria e divenga immortale! Om -- ricorda i miei sacrifici, ricorda come ti ho servito! Ricorda i miei sacrifici, ricorda come ti ho servito!
The Breath of things1 is an immortal Life, but of this body ashes are the end. OM! O Will, remember, that which was done remember! O Will, remember, that which was done remember.

O Agni, mio Dio, mio Signore! Tu che conosci la via, guidaci sul giusto cammino! Facci superare ogni ostacolo, liberaci da ogni difetto! Mi inchino dinnanzi a te, con queste parole ti rengo omaggio.
O god Agni, knowing all things that are manifested, lead us by the good path to the felicity; remove from us the devious attraction of sin. To thee completest speech of submission we would dispose.


Traduzione italiana da:
in quiete Il sito di Gianfranco Bertagni
   English translation: Sri Aurobindo

martedì 6 novembre 2012

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - II

René Magritte, The Red Model II - Le modele rouge II, 1937
Oil on canvas, Edward James Foundation, Chichester, Sussex
I am an anthropologist. And the task of an anthropologist causes him to land himself in strange places. That is, places that are strange to him but, of course, not strange to the people who belong in those places. So, here I am at the governor‘s breakfast in what is for me a strange place but what is for many of you a place where you belong and have your natural being. I am here to relate this strange place to other strange places in the world where men gather together perhaps in prayer, perhaps in celebration, perhaps simply to affirm that there is something bigger in the world than money and pocketknives and automobiles. One of the things children have to learn about prayer is that you do not pray for pocketknives. Some learn it and some don‘t. If we‘re going to talk about such matters as prayer and religion, we need an example, a specimen, about which to talk. The trouble, you see, is that words like “religion” and “prayer” get used in many different senses in different times and in different parts of the world.
***
What I am suggesting is that nature of matters such as prayer, religion, and the like is most evident at moments of change – at moments of what the Buddhists call Enlightenment. And while Enlightenment may involve many sorts of experience, I think it important here to notice how often Enlightenment is a sudden realization of the biological nature of the world in which we live. It is a sudden discovery or realization of life. ... Another example, even more vivid but perhaps less familiar, alas, is the case of Job. Job, you will remember, is like Little Jack Horner. He sticks his finger in the pie and gives to the poor, and says, “What a good boy am I.” He has a God who is exactly like himself and who therefore boasts to Satan about Job‘s virtue. Satan is perhaps the most real part of Job‘s person, deeply hidden and repressed within him. He sets to work to demonstrate that Job‘s pietism is really no good. Finally, after infinite sufferings, a God who is much less pious and pedantic speaks out of the whirlwind and give Job three chapters of the most extraordinary sermon ever written, which consists in telling him that he does not know any natural history.
1 Sai tu quando le capre selvagge delle rocce figliano? Hai tu osservato quando le cerve partoriscono? 2 Conti tu i mesi della lor pregnanza e sai tu il momento in cui debbono sgravarsi? 3 S’accosciano, fanno i lor piccini, e son tosto liberate dalle loro doglie; 4 i lor piccini si fanno forti, crescono all’aperto, se ne vanno, e non tornan più alle madri … – Giobbe 39:1-4
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There is a story, rather well known, of a man who got into a bus with a big cage covered with brown paper. He was quite drunk and quite a nuisance, insisting that the cage be set next to him on the seat. They asked him, “What is in the cage?” and he told them, “A mongoose.” They asked him what he wanted a mongoose for and he explained that a drinking man needs a mongoose for the snakes of delirium tremens. They said, “But those are not real snakes.” He answered triumphantly in a whisper, “Ah … but you see, it‘s not a real mongoose.” Is that the paradigm for all religion and all psychotherapy. Is it all bosh? And what do we mean when we say, “There is no Santa Claus!?”
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If it‘s all bosh, then the sensible man will simply go home and forget it. He might spend the evening fixing the plumbing in his house or filling out his income-tax returns. But such sensible men have never been numerous enough to tidy up the civilization, getting rid of all mythological “junk.” Indeed almost every culture of the world has its mythical figures and forces the children to look directly at these figures to learn that they do not have the same reality as pots and pans or even persons. In every initiating culture, the novices must first experience the mystery of the masked figures and then each novice must wear and dance in the mask. He must himself swing the bull-roarer and will do so with glee. (But why so gleeful?) And what of the Bread and Wine? The communicant “partakes” of these – eats and drinks them – and there could hardly be a more definitive demonstration that the Bread is indeed just bread and the Wine of no distinguished vintage. And Yet … I once tried to help a patient who combined alcoholism with psychosis. He came from a religious family of fundamentalist Christians. In that family, they were not allowed to mention Santa Claus, because the first believing and the then being disillusioned might make the children into atheists. From “There is no Santa Claus”, they might conclude, “There is no Jehovah.” For the present discussion, let me suggest that the sentence “There is no Jehovah” might mean “There is no matrix of mind, no continuity, no pattern in the stuff of which we are made.”

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - I