Re: neti neti/Moller

03-24-2000, 04:17 AM

At 04:33 PM 3/23/00 +0200, you wrote:
>From: J M de la Rouviere
>
>Dear Dan,
>
>Yes Dan, as usual you are perfectly right. Yours is indeed a very
>interesting presentation of this 'practice'. It could indeed undermine
>everything even itself.
>
>As an afterthought to my letter to Roger on some thing he send us about
>Barry ?, I felt it may just be worth pointing to the traditional approach to
>this method. They say take away everything, and what remains will be the
>Self, reality etc. But they seem to approach the process from the position
>that none of the things they reject are reality/Self. Ie, I am not my mind,
>my body etc. To be able to say this, there must be knowledge of what the
>I/Self is. So the whole thing starts with an assumption. If the Self is
>All, and this Self is not my body, what is the body then?
>
>So I was trying to point to this difficulty in this practice which can be
>very misleading unless understood as you have so beautifully explained it.
>
>Thank you for that.
>
>love and respect,
>
>Your Brother M

Dear Mollersan,
I concur. There indeed is a tendency to present neti, neti
as a way to get to something. There is the assurance
that Something will remain, a Self, an ultimate Being.
Taken in its fullness, neti neti undermines the concept of
somewhere to get or someone getting somewhere.
And then it undermines itself, for there is then no
position from which to state "neti, neti," nor any
assumption upon which to base any further negation.

Perhaps the kind of presentation of neti, neti,
who you describe accurately, can be taken as luring
a baby from its position by showing it a rattle.
Once the baby is moving about freely, it discards its
rattle and finds other ways to play.
Ultimately, there is only "play" itself, for the baby
and the playtoys have disappeared. :-)

Love,
Dan

03-24-2000, 04:53 AM

At 09:17 24/03/00 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Dan Berkow, PhD"
>
>At 04:33 PM 3/23/00 +0200, you wrote:
>>From: J M de la Rouviere
>>
Please scroll down a ways...

>>Dear Dan,
>>
>>Yes Dan, as usual you are perfectly right. Yours is indeed a very
>>interesting presentation of this 'practice'. It could indeed undermine
>>everything even itself.
>>
>>As an afterthought to my letter to Roger on some thing he send us about
>>Barry ?, I felt it may just be worth pointing to the traditional approach to
>>this method. They say take away everything, and what remains will be the
>>Self, reality etc. But they seem to approach the process from the position
>>that none of the things they reject are reality/Self. Ie, I am not my mind,
>>my body etc. To be able to say this, there must be knowledge of what the
>>I/Self is. So the whole thing starts with an assumption. If the Self is
>>All, and this Self is not my body, what is the body then?
>>
>>So I was trying to point to this difficulty in this practice which can be
>>very misleading unless understood as you have so beautifully explained it.
>>
>>Thank you for that.
>>
>>love and respect,
>>
>>Your Brother M
>
>Dear Mollersan,
>I concur. There indeed is a tendency to present neti, neti
> as a way to get to something. There is the assurance
> that Something will remain, a Self, an ultimate Being.
> Taken in its fullness, neti neti undermines the concept of
> somewhere to get or someone getting somewhere.
> And then it undermines itself, for there is then no
> position from which to state "neti, neti," nor any
> assumption upon which to base any further negation.
>
>Perhaps the kind of presentation of neti, neti,
> who you describe accurately, can be taken as luring
> a baby from its position by showing it a rattle.
>Once the baby is moving about freely, it discards its
> rattle and finds other ways to play.
>Ultimately, there is only "play" itself, for the baby
> and the playtoys have disappeared. :-)

Hi, please excuse my butting in, without even hovering around the edge of
the conversation first! I read this and I felt the urge to write... and
agree somewhat...

For me, this approach is designed to neutralise the *concepts* of the mind,
including that of itself, ego, maya, nirvana, existence even. Descartes
tried it and shied away at the point where he had to give up his mind...

"I think, therefore I am", plus "God is not a deceiver" combined with
(unspoken) Christian beliefs resulted in the mind/body split of the Western
"Age of Reason". What fun that was.

(is it over yet? Is it OK to come
out from under the bed?

)

Saying "Not this, not that" and being left with something means you are
left with something you cannot discard, but not necessarilly something you
can claim to be ultimately "real" in the terms you conceive of it. You
leave a concept that you cannot discard because it reflects a limit to your
selflessness

I mean that in moral terms, and identity terms.

But we need to choose our masks, because our interaction in life elicits a
limited response, serially, in time. I'm not sure time works the way we in
the West think it does, but that's another matter. We have to dance to a
certain tune of circumstance, but hopefully we can expand our choice of how
we dance.

Thanks for letting me jump in like this.

Love

Rob
>
>Love,
>Dan
>
>
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