[MD] atheistic and content

[Andre Broersen]

Marsha:
The mystical doesn't need to be accepted on faith, it can be
directly experienced to various degrees.  Even the most basic
direct experience can wipe away much of the fog.

Andre:
Hi Marsha and all: this theism issue keeps on rearing its head once in
a while, then subsides and then reappears again. dmb said something
similar along the same lines.
>From the outset I have always considered Pirsig's equation of
'religious' experience as the equivalent of dynamic experience. In
this sense Pirsig used the Latin (original) meaning of the term
re-ligato ...the binding of... .
This (due to the connotations and associations that have evolved with
it) is very, very separate from 'religion' its static manifestation as
we now commonly understand and experience it. It is very far removed
from the direct dynamic experience. This is what Pirsig sees as having
to be dropped, as the dynamic , direct experience has been held as a
carrot and hyjacked as a goof, as a way of excercising social
suppression of intellectual and dynamic freedom.

As a simple way of saying that direct experience is not possible for
the 'ordinary, mere mortal man' but!!! with the help of the priest or
some other intermediary you may come close.

As a child, I was told that if the little red light in church does not
burn, then God was not there!!! (fancy saying that to a
five-year-old!)

I think it is against such fucking nonsense that Pirsig vehemently protests.

Marsha, the 'mystical' IS direct experience, it is religious. It is a
binding together...the state before the unbound, before subjects and
objects, before the divisions. To say that 'it can be directly
experienced' is not correct. It is direct experience.
And those that have had this experience and spread their findings and
learnings have been turned into gods and 'mystics' themselves around
which static patterns of faith have arisen.

I am getting upset...too many memories are flooding in... .

Imho
Andre