The Mosh Pit

Valdez wrote: ... No Gurdjieff for me. Read it, deemed 90% of it Mumbo Jumbo. ... Gurdjieff and Bennett not so much.

Hi,

I think it is sort of like some things happen and hit you at whichever time and place.

Some folks, without using the right words from their time and place, were trying hard to match up the music to other arts, and at least have some sort of a theory that made some sense ... but how it is done, and folks being so different, it makes for the concentration to get to a certain point within meditation and the internal work, as to make it hard to describe and help with the next step.

This is a serious issue with writers that are trying hard to deal with things that (these days) we consider psychic and then we discover how different things can be when seeing from the men's side or the women's side (Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner, opposite Carlos Castaneda), and the women are better at describing things, because it is physical for them, not mental, as is the case with Carlos. But, I think ... (I THINK) that somewhere along the line things come together and get closer ... at least I think so from reading a lot of things.

I do not, in general, think one or another is better or worse. They all have some value, but some bits connect with me and some don't. And this was something that I was prepared for when in reading one of Carlos' books, don Juan said something that was not right at all, and in fact it was mean and ridiculous for the most part, though the reality of it might be possible in a poor area where there are no facilities like we westerners have them.

The line was about Carlos showing him his PHd work ready to be turned in, and don Juan said ... you know what Mexicans do with paper? And I was born in a house of literature with over 40k books of Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian Literature, and only a true ash-hole would say that, even though it has some form of reality inside a hopeless and poor world that uses leaves and hands to clean up after relieving themselves. The Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch used to love calling the Indians in Brazil savages because of their "bathroom" ways of living, to give you an idea. To me, those 40k books were not toilet paper and it all meant something, specially considering that it was found that at least a large percentage (around 25%) of the books were not catalogued anywhere ... to give you an incredible idea.

Being a multi national, with three very different cultures experienced, there are a lot of things that can be picked up from just about anywhere, and the opening up to that is a treat ... as opposed to here, on PA when someone can only say that a new band from Chile is not rock'n'roll and can not be progressive because it doesn't fit a definition that is not about music, it is about geeks trying to define something! And not knowing music, of course!

Thus, it really does not matter who it is, or where they are from, they all have a bit to say and help you with, but it is not always obvious or right there are the tip of your fingers or tongue.

All of them are good in their own right ... all different of course, but finding a general theory of relativity of it all? Much harder because we get stuck on the translations, and some of them are really bad!