I remember having numerous conversations with Evan's father, William Irwin Thompson, when he "performed" as what he used to call "an intellectual standup." It seemed to me then, and with Evan as well, despite the attempt to understand the historical context, they're both looking at it through a very modernist lens.
Take the idea of belief. Even Christianity, prior to the modern era, just had nothing like the left hemisphere, literalist, analytical idea of "belief," much less those in India, etc (I'm not using the word "religion" because our modern idea of a rigid institution simply is inappropriate for - well, even for pre-Romanized Christianity).
The Sanskrit word "sraddha" - often translated as "faith" - refers to what Sri Aurobindo described as "the Light of the yet unrisen Sun".
Really, it is not only not about mental or emotional belief, or modern day notions of purely emotionalized faith... it's not even about what we moderns call "experience."
As with almost everything else in the past few centuries, these confusions are rooted in what Owen Barfield referred to as "the unresolved residue of positivism."
Too much to respond to in a simple comment.
I remember having numerous conversations with Evan's father, William Irwin Thompson, when he "performed" as what he used to call "an intellectual standup." It seemed to me then, and with Evan as well, despite the attempt to understand the historical context, they're both looking at it through a very modernist lens.
Take the idea of belief. Even Christianity, prior to the modern era, just had nothing like the left hemisphere, literalist, analytical idea of "belief," much less those in India, etc (I'm not using the word "religion" because our modern idea of a rigid institution simply is inappropriate for - well, even for pre-Romanized Christianity).
The Sanskrit word "sraddha" - often translated as "faith" - refers to what Sri Aurobindo described as "the Light of the yet unrisen Sun".
Really, it is not only not about mental or emotional belief, or modern day notions of purely emotionalized faith... it's not even about what we moderns call "experience."
As with almost everything else in the past few centuries, these confusions are rooted in what Owen Barfield referred to as "the unresolved residue of positivism."