[MD] In the Begining...

[118]

"In the Beginning was the Word..." So begins an old book, depending on
the translation that one reads.  What better way to start a book,
which is, after all, composed of words.  Before the book was the
spoken word, same thing.  Such a beginning statement requests we go
back to what started the writing of books and telling of stories to
begin with.  It is safe to say that words are the main tool we use to
relate our consciousness to others.  Indeed, it could be said that it
was the word that began the human endeavor of self questioning in
response to words of others.  Human consciousness now operates
dominantly through words.  The rise of the human spirit of
consciousness could be attributed to the word, and that is the
beginning of this book.

"...And the word was Quality", again depending on the translation one
reads.  No! I am not drawing a parallel between religion and MoQ.  I
would never be as pedantic and predictable as to do such nonsense.  I
am pointing to something beyond that.

For indeed, is it not words that provide us with the ability to
describe the attributes of things?  Is it not words that are used to
present the various qualities we sense and feel?  Is not the basic
property of words for describing things to others?  And, are not such
descriptions a presentation of qualities?  This is not to say that
words cannot be coercive or enlightening, for certainly they can.
Such is the power of description.

To reiterate, if then the word was Quality, what does this mean?  All
words are for descriptive purposes in their underlying conception.
All words therefore are based on describing the results of Quality, as
manifested through DQ.  These words describe the attributes of how
things appear.  We get intuition about objects through the qualities
they present.  These qualities reach us and we form words for them.
It is this World of Appearances (or Maya, to use Vedic Knowledge) that
Quality provides us through qualities; and we then choose words for
which to represent it.  Therefore it makes perfect sense to state that
the Word was Quality.

That was how it began.  What came next was the rise of static quality
in human consciousness.  At some point words took on a life of their
own.  Pirsig provides an allegory about the switch of words as
rhetoric, to words for dialectic in ZAMM.  The outline of such
transition as being: words were no longer representations of things,
but of inherent existence in themselves.  Concepts such as Truth,
became intimately attached to the words which pronounced dogma so that
such words became Truth in themselves.  Truth, of course lies beyond
words.  Succumbing to the ocean because one cannot swim, that is
truth; the actual act of drowning is truth in itself of the situation.
 No words needed there.

Then the abstraction of our relationship with our universe became even
more grounded in the way we said things.  Religious dogma and
political rhetoric became binding in how one was supposed to behave.
Subjects were meant to follow the dictates of the words, rather than
what the words were attempting to represent.  This conscious
detachment from direct experience caused conceptual ideas such as
freedom or social responsibility to turn around and dominated the
people who made them up.  These conceptual ideas began to provide
instructions in the same way a God is said to guide behaviour.  People
began to live for such lofty ideals as if they were real and not just
made through words.  We put in leaders that would be the prophets of
such ideas and enforce them as if they were somehow devinely chosen to
do such a thing.

And so, with MoQ we find an attempt at reversal of such "progress" of
the human spirit.  This is a rebalancing of the wordy consciousness we
are all indoctrinated with from birth, with a sense of directly
interacting despite the presence of some "distancing" created by
words.  It is an emphasis on Quality from a place before the word (and
its family of diction) was created to represent Quality.  It is the
sense of being with Quality rather than reading about it.  This cannot
be achieved through words alone, and requires action.  For this reason
Pirsig calls in the powers of Arête.  It is to allow us stand above
words and know oneself as an expression of the Good.  It makes no
difference what the definition of Good is, that is simply a
distraction.  It is time to realize that and move on.

Words can lift you up
Can tear you down
Can steal your heart
Right from the start

Cheers,
Mark


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