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Message |
| Posted By: |
Don't know Jack |
| Date: |
18-Feb-2000 |
| Subject: |
What do you do with a work of art? |
I think the discussions lately have been fascinating. This morning in the shower, it struck me that many of them have to do, one way or another, with one of my favorite quotes by Rama:
"Pedestals were invented by a very wise man who perceived the need in human consciousness to cast people down. This wise man realized that it would be impossible to cast people down unless you had put them up on something first. So he invented the pedestal, which is now employed on a regular basis. You put people on it so you can cast them down later. Indeed, he was a wise man."
This seems so apt. Some of the folks posting seem to have a 100% positive view of Rama that has some overtones of Pedestal.com. Some seem to have almost a 100% negative view of Rama that smacks of having been posted from CastDownFromPedestal.com. Others seem to see him having some kind of balance, with both positive and negative qualities, like any other human on this rock. I don't know what that makes us -- pedestalless? confused? PartiallyElevatedPartiallyCastDown.com?
But thinking about some of the things said lately, and bouncing them off of this quote in my mind, I think the man just *nailed* it. The way I see it, the vehement 100%-negative folks are to some extent the Bizzaro-world counterparts of the 100%-positive folks. They had so much invested in their internal image of Rama and who he was that when he did something (*anything*) that went against that image, they couldn't accept to it and had to cast down the entire image. Perhaps that's what the man was getting at in this marvelous koan, that pedestals = attachment, and as the Buddha said, "Attachment sucks." (To be honest, I doubt that those were the Buddha's exact words, but you get the point.)
What do you think?
I'm really not trying to start an argument or anything. This is really what I get from this wonderful passage. It's my second favorite Rama quote. I ponder it often. And I've learned so much from you guys about other subjects that I'm interested in learning more from you about this one. What do *you* see in it? |
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