Re: Spreading better memes (Re: Can Extropianism and Islam coexist?)

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 03:26:59 MST

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    Charles Hixon:
    >Seems somewhat similar to koans, a way of attacking the rooted
    >beliefs. With koans, at least, you don't even need to believe
    >in the persuppositions of the system to benefit from it, if
    >you can take the challenge seriously as a riddle.

    >Seems somewhat similar to koans, a way of attacking the rooted
    >beliefs. With koans, at least, you don't even need to believe
    >in the persuppositions of the system to benefit from it, if
    >you can take the challenge seriously as a riddle.

    That's right.

     From my (admittedly casual, last 15 yrs) study, the Sufis' quest
    for enlightenment is a self-knowing, overcoming as much as possible
    social conditioning. So they have developed many many methods, of
    which the 'scattering technique' that I described previously, is
    one method.

    Another way to overcome our social conditioning is by using
    multi-layered stories, parables, poetry, which have a new meaning
    each time you read the same one. If you read one and say to yourself
    "huh" ?, then that means that you didn't understand one of the
    messages, but you shifted your mind in a useful new way. (Try
    reading: _Tales of the Dervishes_ by Idries Shah, to see what I
    mean). More about this can be found in _Learning How to Learn_ by
    Idries Shah.

    Another way the Sufis like to shift our thinking patterns is to
    present something as 'ridiculous' (court jesters, clowns,
    tricksters, for example are Sufic). The most famous 'Idiot' (or
    Sage?) is the Mulla Nasrudin, and the stories of his adventures are
    pervasive throughout Sufi schools because they are teaching stories.

    In the Sufi stream, enlightenment can be gained via love, meaning a
    (poetic) love of perfect devotion to a wise Muse. The poets are the
    chief disseminators of Sufi thought ("Under the poet's tongue lies
    the key of treasury" says Nizami, a Persian poet). Poetry has a
    subsidiary role for the Sufis- they think that it helps to prepare
    the mind, to allow values concepts to flow inwards, as a "bridge".
    Rumi, one of the greatest poets of Persia, regarded poetry as a
    reflection of the enormous inner reality which he called love, but
    the greatest love he said, is silent and cannot be expressed in
    words. Idries Shah says that "it is not possible to understand Sufi
    poetry unless one is steeped in the imagery and almost unbelievable
    depth of feeling which is cloaked in allegory".

    The Sufis have given humankind many valuable things. One reason
    people don't hear very much about them is that they feel that their
    function to be a 'nutrient' for society, and to then transmute and
    disappear, leaving altered traces only.

    Amara

    -- 
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    Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara@amara.com
    Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
    Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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          "Trust in the Universe, but tie up your camels first."
                    (adaptation of a Sufi proverb)
    


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