Subud Vision - Discussion
Marius Kahan - Subud and the Art of Automobile Maintenance
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From Michael Irwin, September 14, 2010. Time 20:7
Andrew wrote: "I freely and vigorously acknowledge this term "divine energy" is a metaphor"
I agree but some people don't understand metaphor so communication is limited.
Someone mentioned 'certainty. Unfortunately, I can't remember where. The point for me is that in varying degrees people crave certainty. Fundamentalists can't live peacefully without it, so they create it by being literal and not wishing to see metaphor as merely referring to something indescribable. Over time, the need for certainty has warped the social profile of Subud membership, leaving those requiring certainty to dominate. Offering uncertainty is absolutely the one thing they don't want to hear.
Having moved from wanting certainty to being willing to live with uncertainty has proven difficult for me and now that I live with uncertainty I have to admit that the discipline to keep it up is very hard.
From Merin Nielsen, September 15, 2010. Time 5:28
Hi, Michael,
You wrote: "The point for me is that in varying degrees people crave certainty. Fundamentalists can't live peacefully without it, so they create it by being literal and not wishing to see metaphor as merely referring to something indescribable. Over time, the need for certainty has warped the social profile of Subud membership, leaving those requiring certainty to dominate. Offering uncertainty is absolutely the one thing they don't want to hear."
'Crave certainty' and 'requiring certainty' and 'offering certainty' are interesting phrases. The personal context is quite distinct from any institutional context. I try not to use fuzzy metaphors, and am pretty certain about my personal opinions on spirituality, the latihan, life after death and so on. However, if I keep these views to myself, then generally people would not count me as a fundamentalist. So, apparently, a feeling of personal certainty about one's own perspective does not in itself make one a fundamentalist.
Fundamentalism -- as the problem we're discussing -- exists when, in an institutional context, some specific opinion about largely untestable matters (usually but not necessarily relating to spirituality) is proselytised as THE certain -- and hence the only sensible or reasonable -- perspective. (This may concern a particular institution, such as Subud, or even the institution of society as a whole.)
Thus, I don't think failure to recognise metaphor is the real issue. While it seems that fundamentalism tends not to employ much metaphorical language, absence of metaphorical language does not indicate non-fundamentalism. And while fundamentalism tends to entertain certainty, not entertaining certainty does not indicate non-fundamentalism.
However, the "assertion" of certainty, in a proselytising way, appears to be definitional. This is where 'crave' and 'requiring' and 'offering' are relevant. For me, the big question becomes why fundamentalists seemingly feel the need to engage in this, as if wanting the respective institution to harbour just the one specific point of view -- concerning the particular, more or less untestable matters.
(Below is a rhyme that I want to show off, which I made up while on a long drive somewhere, years ago.
Once I met a metaphor for which I felt so sad, because there was no better form of meaning to be had. Yet before the metaphor could semaphore its wishes, they took its flags for tea towels, and made it dry the dishes. I’m sure one could not get a more resourceful kitchen drip, but I never saw a wetter floor on which a tongue might slip. )
From Andrew Hall, September 15, 2010. Time 14:59
Merin,
I would like to offer a few comments.
On the use of metaphor, you say you try not to use "fuzzy metaphors". Aren't all metaphors fuzzy? I think that is what defines a metaphor and makes metaphor useful. They are suggestive and open-ended and that ambiguity engages the imagination.
I suppose an analogy would be a humorous joke. It works like a metaphor because the meaning of the joke catches you unaware. When you have to explain the joke, or paraphrase it, then it loses something of its power.
Language, the words we use, are like the bricks that can be pieced together to build a structure. But to stand back and see the structure as a whole, see the context that lies outside the structure, then I think we need metaphor.
Not to dismiss the value of rational, logical thought, not at all, but it has its limits. It cannot do for us what metaphor can. I think both modes of appreciation, metaphor and rationality, are necessary and good.
To me, fundamentalism is about two things - failing to appreciate the power of metaphor, and insisting on literal truth. I think they are linked. And I think that the second, the insistence on literal truth, is about certainty.
Put another way, I think the issue may be the refusal to entertain or allow, or admit, uncertainty. On that basis, I think fundamentalists may be as distrustful of "fuzzy" metaphors as you seem to be.
I think that certainty is an illusion. How can we humans with our limited language and limited consciousness have the conceit that our thoughts and assertions capture or are adequate to circumscribe the mystery of Nature.
We can never possess the Truth, we can only pursue it. I think that religious faith makes sense to me in this context.
Take care,
Andrew
From Michael Irwin, September 15, 2010. Time 19:56
Merin wrote: "Thus, I don't think failure to recognise metaphor is the real issue. While it seems that fundamentalism tends not to employ much metaphorical language,..."
While agreeing with most of the rest of the writing from which this quote is taken, I don't agree with the idea that fundamentalists do not employ much metaphorical language. Take the simplest: God. The word God is a place holder for what the Hindu's might call the ineffable. But the fundamentalist would have none of that thinking because then the reality and the nature of reality of God would be in question. While using 'God' they fail to see that it stands for something indescribable and would refuse to use it as a metaphor. Your statement implies that if the fundamentalists don't see the use of the word 'God' as a metaphor then it isn't a metaphor. I could never convince them otherwise but I won't accept the idea that if somebody else doesn't see the word as a metaphor then it isn't one. It isn't to 'them'.
From Merin Nielsen, September 16, 2010. Time 0:31
Hi, Andrew,
Philosophers tend to concur that all language, every bit of it, is actually metaphorical. Still, I'd say there's a fair distinction between intended and unintended metaphor, in that a speaker may or may not deliberately resort to description by analogy. If the speaker uses metaphor deliberately, this shows that he or she is aware that the listeners might have different "linguistic world-maps", and is taking into account the possibility of perspectives being non-isomorphic. On the other hand, the speaker might simply assume that the listeners are all 'on the same page' as himself or herself in this regard, and not bother to seek or employ description by analogy. (Analogies typically 'refer' the listener to elements of reality that are more basic, and thus more likely to be common to everybody's linguistic world-maps. Whenever the linguistic world-maps of a bunch of people are 'in-synch', then overt metaphors are much less needed, and the language tends to be called 'normative'.)
Accordingly, I think use of metaphor is in principle completely rational. In practice, however, some metaphors are fuzzier than others, and especially fuzzy metaphors may be employed for more than one reason: Firstly, perhaps because there's no other analogy available that seems more likely to be comprehended; or secondly, perhaps because the speaker does not want his or her language to be transparent or exposed to direct scrutiny. This might occur when the speaker wishes primarily to persuade, rather than to inform -- attempting to overwhelm the listeners' linguistic world-maps with non-normative terms that are presented as if they were normative. This can effectively 'force' the respective world-map elements into place, even potentially at the expense of compromising the overall coherence and structural integrity of everyone's world-maps.
I'd guess that, deep down, this is roughly what fundamentalism is about -- forcing the conformity of people's perspectives by imposing 'supposedly normative' elements (equating to certainty) upon them, whereby the shared normativity gets covertly modified. For people who are impressionable (often younger people), their world-maps more readily fall into line with that of the speaker. For other people, too much re-alignment would be needed in order to incorporate the speaker's linguistic references -- which amounts to an uncomfortable 'warping' of their perspective on reality -- and so they tend to less readily accept the world-map 'connections' that the speaker is imposing.
Note that none of this happens if the speaker admits up front to using metaphorical language, because then there is no overwhelming or forcing of normativity -- the listeners are conscious of checking out the compatibility between the speaker's world-map connections and their own. It's an 'open' process of interaction in which any sense of certainty does not play a direct role. AFTER this interaction process, every listener may go away and compare the metaphorical content with that of their own linguistic world-maps, and will either make corresponding modifications or not -- perhaps arriving at new personal certainties, or new personal "possiblies" or perhaps neither.
You wrote: "I think that certainty is an illusion."
I agree to the extent that "certainty", just like every concept, is itself really a metaphor. (It might mean something like "enough sureness to act upon".) As such, it's nonetheless a useful word.
Hi, Michael,
You're quite right -- 'God' is just about the fuzziest of all metaphors, and is the focus of much fundamentalism, but what I meant is what you have surmised -- that fundamentalism tends to interpret language in what would usually be called a literalist way. So you and I are taking 'metaphor' in different senses: I prefer to call a linguistic device 'metaphorical' if it is patently intended as a sort of descriptive analogy by the speaker; whereas your definition hinges on the listener.
Cheers, Merin
From Merin Nielsen, September 16, 2010. Time 0:45
P.S. I suspect that once some element or connection has been 'anchored' or has firmly consolidated its normative place within the collective linguistic world-map, then it tends to be no longer perceived as intrinsically metaphorical.
From Philip Quackenbush, September 16, 2010. Time 5:38
Hi, guys,
Don't want to butt in on your three or four-way discussion too much, but a couple of points may be in order on the subject of certainty, which I think are of fundamental importance (that may be as close as I get these days to my usual puns on this site any more). I think it was Ramana Maharshi who said that the entire Vedanta (the last section of the Upanishads, the main scripture of the Hindus that sets out to try to explain some "ways" to "God") is contained, or summed up in the two phrases in the Bible, "The Lord thy God is One" and "Be still, and know that I am God". As corollaries to those, one could add those in the NT, where "Jesus" is reported to have said, "The Father is in me, and I in the Father" and in another separate passage "I am in you and you are in me" (and the equation or congruence is expressed in the OT as "I AM that I AM"). In my opinion, until one understands that that means that everyone and everything is God, with the one proviso that we are a part of God, but God is not a part of us except as the Whole, and hopefully eventually directly experiences that, all we can be certain of is that we exist (but if we are in God, and God in us, then only God exists (as Rochanawati was indicating in her prayer mantra, "God, only God"), therefore we don't exist, except as reflections or dreams of God. Get the logic of that? So, a fundamentalist makes the fundamental mistake of putting God somewhere "out there" (or "in t/here" in some cases), as opposed to everywhere and everywhen.
How does all this relate to metaphors? Well, my online dictionary (Oxford something or other, I think) indeed says that metaphors are "a thing regarded as a symbol of something else", which is exactly what words are (when they get to the level of "poetic" metaphor, then they become symbols about symbols or symbols about symbols about symbols).The interesting thing to me is that the Koran specifically states that passages in it are symbolic (i.e., metaphors; as far as I know the Bible doesn't so stat) but Islamic fundamentalists, like their Christian and Jewish fundamentalist or extreme Orthodox counterparts, take everything literally, not realizing that words are not literal to begin with. The word "tree" is not the tree, or anything approaching it, except perhaps as a mark on what used to be part of a tree, and does anyone, including fundamentalists, go into a restaurant to eat the menu? This, IMO, is not just a problem in Subud, it is a major problem in the world at large, as evidenced by the religiously-based wars (certainly the vast majority of wars) throughout history and prehistory. Only by changing a separatist mentality to the realization that all is One (and so, what you do to any other self you do to your "own" self [the Golden Rule transmuted to platinum]; we live in a holographic universe where everything effects everything else (for a graphic illustration or two of how it all works, check out the physicist Milo Wolff's website), as quantum physics discloses (what the Buddha called "dependent origination") will it ever be possible to have true harmony and peace on this planet.
Sorry about all the parenthetical asides. Try reading through this post, ignoring the subplots, now that you now the details. Enjoy.
Peace, Philip
From Merin Nielsen, September 16, 2010. Time 6:20
Hi, Philip,
You wrote: "all we can be certain of is that we exist"
But 'certain' need not imply "logically impossible to be otherwise". It should mean something slightly fuzzier. Similarly, "all is One" must mean something like "all is interconnected" (in order for 'all' to refer to things).
Cheers, Merin
From Andrew Hall, September 16, 2010. Time 18:19
Hi Merin,
I appreciate what I see as your very considered reply.
I like your point that metaphor can be deliberately intended to be inscrutable and used to persuade (or coerce) rather than inform, and that letting people know upfront you are using a metaphor is the way to avoid overwhelming or forcing "normativity."
I am not used to some of your terms, like normativity, although I think I know what they mean. My bent is to use more colorful language, something like - religious fundamentalism uses language to project its fascist values - an idealized past, a rejection and distrust of thinking and a suspicion of the intellect that restricts the faithful to a certain vocabulary and set of ideas, a demand for obedience and consensus and harmony that avoids disagreement and differences, no room for individual choice or decision-making as all decisions are made by the leadership, a promise of identity as a member of the group, clear identification of an enemy or enemies (the nafsu and the intellect??), the promise of redemption from one's own shotcomings and favour with God that is repeatedly linked to the afterlife where big things are promised and hinted at.
I guess my way to reject this mind control,
Andrew
From Philip Quackenbush, September 16, 2010. Time 19:25
Hi, Merin,
How do you pronounce that, BTW? Murr-IN, MARE-in, Mare-AHN (the French IN), or what? Your last name would suggest Scandinavian pronunciation, and the Swedes have sixteen vowels, as opposed to English's modicum of eight, and Italian and Japanese's paucity of five, so I was just wondering.
Your comment is a perfect illustration of the limitation of words to communicate. The certainty that I exist arises not from the thought that I do (or the fact that I think, as Descartes erred in stating), but in a feeling, which can be fuzzy or sharply "defined" or some other equally limited descriptor which, like trying to define (or "explain") a single a fly, as C.S, Lewis once pointed out, goes beyond anyone's abilities in an entire lifetime (not that it matters; it doesn't: life just happens, as an email I got from a "member" of a non-dual discussion group I'll be attending later instead of Thor's day knight latihan [usually more "real", if I do say so myself] today pointed out).
And yes, all is One does necessarily infer that all is connected, but that's just one inference. In fact, the Oneness of everything and everytime has infinite inferences (and infinite consequences, turning the "known world" upside down, so to speak), because, instead of looking at the world from a perspective of one of the Whole's parts and trying to analyze Its parts, one starts with the Whole and looks for how it is functioning as "personal" experiences, without judgment, just letting the experiences happen (as in latihan, one might say, but it's "bringing the latihan into the world" Big Time, IMO). Again, I would refer you to Milo Wolff's webpage to see a couple of graphic descriptions of how the universe works to bring about what is experienced, where he solves most, and possibly all of the so-called paradoxes of quantum mechanics (I'm not a physicist, so I can't say for sure, but it sure looks like it to me). Enjoy,
Peace, Philip
From Merin Nielsen, September 17, 2010. Time 12:12
Hi, Philip,
I've looked at a few pages of Milo Wolff's self-published books. I don't think he's genuine. There's a review of his first book in New Scientist magazine, 15th February 1992 - not encouraging.
My name has stress on the first syllable. By the way, English uses 12 distinct vowel sounds along with 8 diphthongs.
Cheers, Merin
From Philip Quackenbush, September 17, 2010. Time 23:14
Hi, Merin,
Well, until something better comes to my attention, I found Wolff's material enlightening, though I've heard some Russian scientists have gone "deeper" into another form of energy than the so-called four forces of electromagnetism, playing around with "home-made" pyramids and such for something to do after the Soviet Onion collapsed, coming up with some far-out effects, including healing of premature babies' problems and decrease in aggression of criminals in prison, making frogs give birth to salamanders, etc. If cosmologists are now admitting that we don't know anything about at least 90 to 95% of the universe except that it exists, then I'd say we still have a lot to learn. Any time you deal with scientists, you have to take into account the way they defend their turf. The billiard ball model of the atom is still prominent in physics, despite being thoroughly "disproved" through numerous experiments, for example.
The most egregious examples of that phenomenon have to be found in religion, though, where, for example, an Australian Bible scholar managed to decode the New Testament according to a system found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and found a "secret" life of "Jesus" that was so disturbing to the standard doctrines ("Jesus" didn't die on the cross and didn't actually walk on water or convert water into wine, for example) that she was attacked from all sides, including Jewish rabbis, because it disclosed a part of Jewish history that wasn't too pleasant to look at.
I find it hard to come up with 8 vowels in English, much less 12 (easy to come up with 12 in French, if I remember mine sufficiently), but if you go through the spectrum from Oxford to Oz and back again via Tennessee and/or Kentucky dialect (which some linguists equate with Shakespearean English) and Eliza Doolittle, you could be right, especially if that includes Glaswegian, which a movie I once saw needed English subtitles to understand. A local language prof at U Dub here was the authority I was referencing. She was lecturing on the way babies learn a language and how it affects their abilities to speak other languages later in life. Fascinating. Enjoy.
Peace, Philip
From Michael Irwin, September 17, 2010. Time 23:30
Thor's day knight!!! Tut, Tut, King that is.
From Philip Quackenbush, September 18, 2010. Time 13:49
Hey, Michael,
I guess you don't have enough Scandal navy yams in your neck of the woods to celebrate Woden's Day and Thor's day. But, then, if we changed it all to Firstday, Secondday, etc., it would lose a bit of je ne sais quoi, (Elliot) Ness' Pa?
It would be even harder than trying to get the Subud organization to change the cultish language of latihan kedjiwaan to something else that doesn't have the questionable odor of that indefinable and possibly nonexistent "spirituality" about it, like Rajneesh's name for it, "swing and let go", or whatever it was, after he was "opened" by a woman and incorporated it into his cult, modifying it to the extent that men and women do it together, like they do in the Roman Catholic services in Indonesia and elsewhere (and on Christian TV of a certain stripe, from what I've seen), from what I hear. Enjoy.
Peace, Philip
From rochanah, September 18, 2010. Time 17:13
test
From rochanah, September 18, 2010. Time 17:22
Just interesting: Just read Mario Vargas Llosa's "LITUMA EN LOS ANDES", in Spanish; so I have to paraphrase rather than copy the exact quotes. But one of the characters is a "bruja" who describes a form of dance and intoxication which very well describes the "latihan". The Bruja is more in touch with the "dark side" but does describe getting in touch with the inner self, the infinite, etc. through this type of dance which requires a "letting go", etc.
From Philip Quackenbush, September 19, 2010. Time 2:46
Hi, Rochanah,
Long time no hear from. Glad to know you're still kicking. I'm reading a couple of novels myself to get some ideas, because I'm writing one myself. Yes, the chied characteristic of the latihan is letting go, relaxation, whatever you want to call it, surrender, etc. That's what allows what Jung calls the collective unconscious to break through the usual clamp-down on behavior of the mind-body complex to allow the "spirit", oversoul, whatever, to break through or become active in one's life (through the activation of the pineal gland, by the way, which is graphically represented at the Vatican by the largest external sculpture there of a pine cone; that's why some people have difficulty "receiving" it, because it's become somewhat calcified). It's a change in the physiology, as I've stated many times, but there hasn't been enough research done on the phenomenon yet to put a scientific stamp on it, which is a pity, because it would allow people who are otherwise unable to accept such phenomena to allow themselves access to it, and eventually live from it ('live the latihan", as a Subudnik might say). That integration can take months, years, or even lifetimes, but whether it's achieved through Zen meditation, the "right" kind of drugs (brujos, as I recall, often use them to alter their state), or what Subud calls the latihan doesn't really matter. It's the next stage of evolution of human society, IMO, and it will happen and is happening no matter how close to the vest the Subud organization through its cultish behaviors and elitist attitudes continues to hold its supposedly-new "gift" by requiring enquirers to go through a waiting period and possible refusal to "give" it to them. Would the average mother refuse to give her baby food?Enjoy.
Peace, Philip
From Marius, September 19, 2010. Time 14:8
Crikey! I don’t take the remotest bit of credit for it, but I’m blown away by the scope of discussion provoked by the early feedback to my article. After the discussion got bumped to a second page I stopped receiving notifications as a result of which I had no idea how much further it had gone, so I’m weighing in a little late.
Before going any further, a propos Thor’s Day, I just thought I’d mention that in Portuguese the days of the week are numerical, apart from Sunday (domingo, counted as the first day) and Saturday (sábado, the Sabbath). Monday is segunda, then it’s terça, quarta, quinta and sexta. So if you ever want to threaten someone Portuguese, it won’t carry much weight to tell them that their days are numbered.
Anyway, fundamentalism and metaphor – I’ve noted a huge amount of trite metaphor in use by Christian fundamentalists, very often without any discernible parallel to reality (whatever that is) – you know, stuff like: ‘people are like tea bags – you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are’ or ‘forbidden fruit creates many jams’. Honestly, I could vomit.
Merin’s summary of linguistic world-maps and normative language was brilliant, but once we get into the purest notions of words as symbols then none of us really has a clue what’s going on in anyone else’s head. The mechanics of language – encoding an idea into words and vibrating the vocal chords with exhaled air while manipulating tongue and lips to generate representative sound waves, and these waves causing resonances in the eardrums of someone else in order to trigger chemical messages in their brain which then are decoded back into words and interpreted by the peculiarities of their psychology – are indeed clever and useful, but like an internet chat room, you don’t know what the person on the other end actually looks like. Is there an empirical way to describe the colour blue (other than in Photoshop)?
People far cleverer than I have devised linguistic structures that afford levels of precision that go some way towards allowing a degree of certainty, but it can all fall apart; Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky for example all started out apparently holding the same ideals, but look how they ended up (BTW, I am aware of the weaknesses of this example before you rip it apart – I’m using it fuzzily). So what are the odds that we are ever really on the exact same page as anyone else? I would suggest that in the end we are all islands, so to compensate we have these handy emotional and spiritual modes of being that enable us to experience what I suppose we would call intimacy.
But as far as certainty is concerned, I find it overrated. Far from being a difficult state to maintain I find the uncertainty that life has imposed on me highly liberating – of that I am certain. It’s refreshing to know that I am a microbe on a speck of dust because it means, among other things, that whatever I choose to believe (and all beliefs are choices in the end) is unlikely to be of great consequence to the supreme conscious force in which I do believe. It also means that whatever I want to achieve, no matter how difficult a goal may look, it’s actually something really tiny. What will be will be, and I have precious little control over that.
That obviously raises the spectre of free will. Do we have it? I’m not even sure of that, another uncertainty that, at the very least, lets me off the hook. If we have free will, I can honestly say that I have pursued my aims honestly, done the best I could and that my numerous fails result from forces that acted upon and formed the growing Marius. If we don’t – well then, nothing’s my fault, is it? I find this extremely acceptable as it gives me a really strong sense that no matter how noisily my ego tries to express itself, there’s a part of me that knows, absolutely, that it’s a trivial little show-off. And this entire perspective (which might be so much garbage to someone else, and I’m fine with that) is courtesy of the latihan, which is why I think it’s something pretty special – because it’s given me something to live by. The problem with fundamentalism is that it doesn’t allow for a big, big universe, only for a teeny-weeny universe of fixed ideas and judgement.
As for Milo Wolff goes, the quantum world is chock-full of physicists who have some extremely wacky ideas, but if you can think at the levels these guys do then I imagine it opens up some pretty far-out possibilities. Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum theory famously said “you are not thinking, you are merely being logical”; these are very clever guys and I would not care to speculate whether they are right or wrong (if such absolutes even exist). Another Bohr quote I really like is “we are all agreed that your theory is crazy; the question which divides us is whether or not it is crazy enough to stand a chance of being correct – my feeling is that it is not.”
In the world of quantum mechanics it has been proven that a particle can be in two places at once, that a photon behaves completely randomly when it hits a pane of glass – sometimes passing through, sometimes being reflected, with no discernable pattern (Niels Bohr again “prediction is difficult – especially about the future”). The entire universe is founded on uncertainty, in other words, with these uncertainties condensing into predictable physical laws to give us useful material forces such as gravity and magnetism.
I think that the universe supports me in my sincerely held belief (not that I’m certain of it) that the spiritual quest is a search for the kind of uncertainty that allows for any and all possibilities. Fundamentalists can’t cope with that idea, so they invent certainties and are then obliged to try to impose these on others so that they don’t have to deal with the spanner of having free-thinkers in the works. So at one end of the scale we have Fox News and at the other – well, conversations like this. So, to wrap up, my concern for Subud is that it’s getting more and more like Fox News (metaphorically speaking).
A final question. Rochanah, when you wrote, in your first posting ‘test’ – was that a suggestion for getting to the core of the matter or just to see if your posts were making it to the page? Just curious...
Cheers,
Marius.
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