[Buddha-l] Religious, But Not Spiritual

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Joy Vriens schreef:
>
>> this is to complicated for an old simple minded philosopher like me. I  
>> never succeded in reading any substantial text from Ken (does he come as  
>> a Barbydoll as well?) because I always fell asleep after three pages.  
>> Perhaps I should first study 'Isis unveiled' in order to get a grip on  
>> this trans-thing. 
>> As for your last question: I don't know if I'm a Buddhist, it depends  
>> hwo asks, and I don't know nirvana, so maybe you're asking the wrong  
>> person. But if you find out, I'll be very interested to know :-) . 
>>     
>
> Old simple minded philosophers are my favorite ones, especially ones that can resist sleep through 3 pages of a Wilber book. The fragment of which I posted a link interested me in that it made the distinction between religion and spirituality, although both speakers seemed to suggest there was no access to spirituality outside religion, which I don't agree with. In another extract on the same website 
Hadot tells me that philosophy used to be the general way to happyness 
and wisdom, untill a group of fanatics convinced some king that it is 
abolutely necessary to believe in something and the king made it 
obligatory for all his subjects. Still the old philosophical bag of 
tricks was at everybody's disposal and the ones who used it became known 
as mystics. They were a much distrusted bunch of loners who tended to 
neclect the fattwas of the pope. When in modern times the church and the 
instutionalised religion lost their popularity because of the upsurging 
wave of bourgeois romanticism and individualism, the loners became heros 
of spirituality. This word was reinvented after his origin (spiritus or 
pneuma, which means breath) was long forgotten.
> (http://padmakara.zaadz.com/blog/2007/9/the_future_of_spirituality) the view on pre-rational, rational, trans-rational development is further explained. I find the idea of classifying different aspects, periods, beliefs and techniques of a religion in those categories quite interesting, but I don't agree with seeing this as a general progress or "vertical" development. I also disagree with his idea of immortality. Of course immortality exists as a mode of experience (like "spirituality"), but to treat them as things and to project thing-like geometrical qualities onto them... 
>
> I see the trans-thing as an integration of something as another perspective. I consider seeing things only through a rational perspective as an impoverishment or an amputation. 
> _
The meaning of the word 'rational'  is another source of confusion. 
Ratio is a Latin translation of the Greek 'logos',  which meant 
originally 'meaning' or 'principle'. Ratio has however the connotation 
of calculation, so some of the original meaning was lost. Now some may 
see anything that can be proven by clever reasoning as rational, and 
someone who only relies on calculation can be called a rational person. 
But another possible interpretation is that rationality is the demand 
that anything that is put forward has to be clear and concise so that 
it's open for discussion and criticism. I have no trust in 'wisdoms' 
which are based on fallacies like an argument on authority or any other. 
Transrational has this meaning of being beyond discussion. Anyone who 
disagrees is an outsider and possible fuel for the stake first and hell 
later. Most transrational wisdoms I've heard of are like raw meat, bad 
for the digestion because not properly cooked.

-- 


Erik

Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms  
Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 
Productie: http://stores.lulu.com/jehmsstudio