To doubt the literal meaning of the words of Jesus or Moses incurs hostility from most people, but its just a fact that if Jesus or Moses were to appear today, unidentified, with the same message he spoke many years ago, his mental stability would be challenged. This isnt because what Jesus or Moses said was untrue or because modern society is in error but simply because the route they chose to reveal to others has lost relevance and comprehensibility. "Heaven above" fades from meaning when space-age consciousness asks, Where is "above"? But the fact that the old routes have tended, because of language rigidity, to lose their everyday meaning and become almost closed doesnt mean that the mountain is no longer there. Its there and will be there as long as consciousness exists.
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About Robert M. Pirsig
Robert M. Pirsig was a 20th-century American writer and philosopher. Robert Maynard Pirsig was an American writer and philosopher. He is the author of the philosophical books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974) and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991), and he co-authored On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Selected and Unpublished Writings (2022) along with his wife and editor, Wendy Pirsig. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Philosophy — Deep thoughts on existence, knowledge, and the nature of reality