[D-G] all things indian

[Super Dragon]

Hi Paul, well I guess there is a kind of humour in 'all things Indian'-delusions of the'grandious' or perhaps an elated slip of the tongue, brought on by shock at signs of life in the desert... Please don't unsubscribe on that account. I found your post useful and pitched at the right level for a moron like me...

>No need to be sorry-I am not!
I guessed you'd say that...I was going to put 'smile' after the sorry. 

Ha! well this is the point about singularity and personal memory. You knew right and only on the basis that that kind of attitude has been a discernable refrain of mine for many moons... what doesn't kill one makes one stronger and all that...

Louis Malle made a 9hr doco on India: 'Phantom India' in the 70's. There is a bit on Aurosville. 
The other place that seems to never die is Osho's ashram in Poona. This is the guy who had the largest collection of Rolls in the world. They were all ultimately sold to a texas car dealer. His 'followers' built a 10km road on the ranch in the US so he could drive around...I have heard this explained as a zen critique of materialism....lol

I've never heard of Malle-Aurosville is interesting because it attenpts to set itself at a physical distance ( as recommended in Plato's Republic) but of course cannot maintain the separatism. The material critique is a common one, not usually of the  founders of each tradition but certainly of their followers. It is quite interesting to think through in the context of Bergson's open and closed societies. There is no way for affective transformation in the real without the medium of followers-the mystic returns to the closed repetions of the socious through writing or, sometimes, through oral transmission. The last is a bit dubious as the really impressive mystics don't usualy have much to say. Then a cult or industry springs up that, it seems is intent on its own preservation-then another mystic comes along breaking out of this repetition....at least experience that would be called psychotic in the West is given some cultural room but it all seems pretty pointless to me...

Peter Brook's production of the Mahabharata is also worth a look if you are into the indian (I think there must be a dvd version).

I always had a soft spot for Gurdjieff, 'Life is only real then, when "I am".' The book is downloadable at:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/word_secret_directory/docs%2F392485.pdf?Signature=56jdhcbbQyRcBUwZvm7BUm6Segs%3D&Expires=1232229829&AWSAccessKeyId=0QDQ3FGYV5Q7TY85W4R2

The book was published by his scheming relatives, shouldn't have been, it is an  unfinished work, but I like the title. His main thing was of course 'the movements.' 

Thanks for both these refs and, of course, the beautifully funny insight into offstage management of the living dead  

Cheers Ruth
cheers,
P.




________________________________
From: Super Dragon <superdragon at addlebrain.com>
To: deleuze-guattari at lists.driftline.org
Sent: Saturday, 17 January, 2009 11:04:09 PM
Subject: Re: [D-G] 1949 Diss. on Spinoza and Vedanta

No need to be sorry-I am not! The experiential learning has been indispensible to current work-I would not now chose not to have had the episodes although, at the same time, it is not a path I can responsibly recommend to anyone else.

Thanks for the references-it is the spiritual materialism that interests me-I'm reading Aurobindo's The Life Divine at present-quite a chewy read but these seems to be some Bergson influence on key terms ( as well as out and out dislike for Nietzsche). Aurobindo is one of the more 'Western' Indian thinkers (studied in France) and his Integral Yoga has already been (badly) 'popularized' by Bede Griffiths attempts to marry it to catholic doctrine on the trinity. As you suggest, folowers tend to be barking...although Aurobindo is interesting in so far as he ( along with The Mother) founded an ideal community Aurosville-this is still running and has a fairly good library for anyone interested... 

Yes, I take the non given as given-what interests me about chaosmosis is the construction of a refrain from the  disorganisation of psychosis. Guattari is interesting from a recovery perspective as he is one of the first practioners to look at ways in which a meaningful life can be constructed in coalition with the clinical symptom. It is only just becoming fashionable to consider recovery as led by social goals than as clinical reduction. One could argue, and i do, that the construction of delusionary figures are ways of organising non-sense and are functional coping strategies in their own righ. For example, one delusion was that dead people were invading my body through my feet ( I live near a graveyard)Being a housefly made it possible to get out of bed and put my feet on the ground (essential to survival really!) The spaceship delusion would kick in when the housefly became unsustainable. None of this was pregiven BUT the form these delusions took
 are undoubtedly culturally sourced and have a personal past-e.g I grew up watching the moon landings and watched a lot of bad 50s sci fi!

None of this predeetermines the way these images will be cut out and redistributed in resubjectifying from non-sense but the resource to cut them out in a new refrain belongs to my singular past and no other-although of course the cultural sources are shared. So I take the currently heretical view in mental health that psychotic delusions may be therapuetic in their own right -I'm not into the romantic idealisation of pychosis- I should also point out that I know of someone so convinced he was the lamb of God that he starved to death. But too much emphasis still on the liquid kosh as first port of call for strange or unusual beliefs... 

I will check out the Stengars essay. I had forggeton about her but could be useful
Happy new year also
Ruth
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