Wittgenstein, language and transcendence...

Speaking of Wittgenstein, language and transcendence...

The fact that we might even be tempted to suppose we can do that bespeaks a deeply human longing to step outside our own skins. We can feel trapped by our bodily, time-bound existence. There’s a kind of religious impulse that seeks liberation from these limits: it seeks to transcend our finite selves and make contact with the infinite. Wittgenstein’s religious impulse pushes us in the opposite direction: he doesn’t try to satisfy our aspiration for transcendence but to wean us from that aspiration altogether. The liberation he offers isn’t liberation from our bounded selves but for our bounded selves.

Metaphysical speculations, for Wittgenstein, are like gears that have slipped free from the mechanism of language and are spinning wildly out of control. Wittgenstein the engineer wants to get the mechanism running smoothly. And this is precisely where the spiritual insight resides: our aim, properly understood, isn’t transcendence but a fully invested immanence. In this respect, he offers a peculiarly technical approach to an aspiration that finds expression in mystics from Meister Eckhart to the Zen patriarchs: not to ascend to a state of perfection but to recognise that where you are, already, in this moment, is all the perfection you need. 

Found at Aeon

Mysticism - interpreted

Talking of mysticism and giving his interpretation/understanding of the same, Fr KM Sebastian, who was also celebrating his b'day, spoke of it as a feeling of being lost in the Lord.  He cited children lost in their petty games, people lost in watching movies in a theatre, couples lost in gazing at one another...

He spoke of an actress who was once asked what sort of a man would she want for a husband.  And she is to have replied,

I do not want a man to live with, but a man without whom I cannot live.  

Now's that's what we call being lost and madly in love.  

Zen and Mysticism

(While at Punganur...)

I just finished reading a small book titled Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. Perhaps this is the first time I'm reading an account of Zen from someone who has at least made an attempt to become part of it, not merely intellectually but something more experiential. Add to that the fact that it is written by a Westerner, since I doubt any Eastern or Japanese would really write about it! However, the writing brought to my mind certain thoughts or concepts written by Miester Eckhart or even Kahlil Gibran. Have to admit that unless one truly experiences it or atleast is willing to be enveloped by it, the text makes profound sense and seems nonsensical at the same time! … mostly the latter. From my little reading and experience I do not see much of a distinction between the “It” or “Budda” described in Zen and “God” in the deeper and radical Christian experience...

Experience vs Thought

The book Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel is about a student's ardent desire to learn about mysticism. Somewhere right in the beginning itself it is made clear to him that mysticism can never be comprehended intellectually. It is an art that is possible to be mastered only through experience. And once you experience, it is difficult to articulate it. However, the student is then put through a means of understanding Zen, through archery. Half way through his 'spiritual' journey, he lands on a good insight:

But why try to anticipate in thought what only experience can teach? Was it not high time to drop this unfruitful habit?