Sphere70 wrote:Well, I don't know about love-letter. I mean, it's clearly written by a man who has deep respect and awe for this enigma of a man.
Consider the many writings from devotees about the various gurus and sages of the times and this is nothing. Or even in our western parts, let a deep admirer of Nietzsche write about him and it will surely sound sweet (or even so - read Nietzsche's own salute to Schopenhauer in Untimely Meditations, a beautiful love-letter indeed - even though the admiration changed later).
True enough. It may be that the author of the essay was young and thus still in the thrall of romanticism. We can certainly forgive him that.
It was my impression reading it that the author was middle-aged, or at least 35, but I could be wrong about this.
I don't think he thought UG consciously escaped it by a certain method - more that it happened when the escape stopped. Not as another trick, another jump to reach a certain goal, but as a pure and honest stop, full-stop, a giving-up in its purest form. When the running that never occurred finally ended, lightning hit.
When there is no separate sense of self (the illusion) there is only events in nature. I think the article clarify this well. The difference between a person with a strong identification principle and one without is then uninterrupted events in nature. No ponderer, no one to build rational structures, no one who feels different emotions - only emotions, thoughts & actions - blowing like wind through an empty corridor.
I don't find this kind of thing very believeble. For one thing, if there is no self, no ponderer, then how could emotion possibly arise? The emotions evolved as defense mechanisms to protect the self. If the self is absent, then what is there to protect?
If a person gives away all his possessions, then what need does he have for keeping the burglar alarms?
From all reports, UG was known to get impatient and angry at times. Why? He also liked to read detective novels in his old age. If he truly had no one inside him, then what was it that seeked regular amusement in ordinary worldly dramas?
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