Mad Rush

[Corey]

how many languages other than English do you speak/read fluently, Sean?

[Sean]

None, though I've attempted French, Spanish and briefly Chinese.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

Do you know my guru Paramahamsa Nithyananda (or Swamiji as we call him)?

[Sean]

Hi there. Actually yes, I think I've seen him on Youtube- 'I'm not here to tell you that I am God. I'm here to tell you that you are God.' A young but accomplished man.

I'm interested in the line of gurus to the West, beginning in the 19th century.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

I have actually never met him, but I joined a meditation group at my work headed by a woman who is a loyal disciple of his. She went on a six week yoga meditation thing in India headed by him. She said they spent hours and hours doing yoga, followed by meditation, followed by more yoga, interspersed with small vegetarian meals. She said they only slept four hours per night but never felt in the least bit tired. I do Vinyasa yoga regularly, but I know this is not exactly a Hindu practice. I am also interested in Kriya, which she also introduced us to, but only a little bit at a time...   This is harder to practice and to understand, but I am interested in learning more.

[Sean]

Nice to read all that, XB. I've done meditation for two decades, which can be prefaced by a set of asanas but I haven't done them for years. Transcendent Meditation was introduced to the West by my guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from the 1960s onwards; he died in 2008.

Thanks again.

[Florestan]

None, though I've attempted French, Spanish and briefly Chinese.

Great! So you have "attempted" French and Spanish and you failed; now, in terms of grammar, syntax and general linguistic philosophy those two languages are much closer to English than any Far Eastern language ever gets, yet you are only too eager to lecture us about how and why the latter are far behind English when it comes to sophistication, and not only the language but the society as well, and how and why the poor devils speaking and inhabiting them are just morons...  But at the same time you are also only too eager to lecture us about how and why the West is doomed and about how and why the Far Eastern philosophy is superior to Western philosophy...

A typical Sean-ish mishmash. 

[Sean]

Firstly kitsune's question and your pursuance of it is ad hominem nonsense.

The point about a backward society and language however is intriguing and I try to make sense of the advantages and disadvantages of the more holistic and intuitive nature of South Asian, and to a lesser extent East Asian, thought in relation to linear and rational Western thought.

Holistic is superior and provides the basic nature of the mind but compartmentalization and straight thinking has got the West ahead in many ways, no matter how much I complain about it. What's needed is the Apollonian grounded in the Dionysiac...

[Sean]

Have a photo, me a few weeks back

[ibanezmonster]

If you spend enough time actually studying French and Spanish, you'll get there. Probably good thing you only "briefly" tried out Chinese. Studying Chinese or Japanese is more like a lifestyle- you have to be serious about it for many, many years. Learning all of the the Romance languages probably take much longer than just learning one of the two. Speaking of those two, this is their story... 

https://www.youtube.com/v/vpXRqB2yEn8

[ibanezmonster]

OH, btw, I remember this one post you made years ago saying something like Japanese often omits the word "I" because it's a "society where the self is not important" or something like that. Can't remember if I responded to that, but just wanted to clarify that they usually omit anything that could be understood through context, like we sometimes do in casual speech in English. They omit "you" just as much. Context is also ridiculously important in Japanese due to the fact that they have so many homonyms.

[Florestan]

The point about a backward society and language however is intriguing and I try to make sense of the advantages and disadvantages of the more holistic and intuitive nature of South Asian, and to a lesser extent East Asian, thought in relation to linear and rational Western thought.

Holistic is superior and provides the basic nature of the mind but compartmentalization and straight thinking has got the West ahead in many ways, no matter how much I complain about it. What's needed is the Apollonian grounded in the Dionysiac...

As if one can divorce thought and language.

The Western languages are perfectly suitable to express Western philosophy, while the Eastern languages are perfectly suitable to express Eastern philosophy (or viceversa, if you prefer). It is for a reason that Plato thought and wrote in Greek, not in Sanskrit, or that Confucius thought and wrote in Chinese, not in English. Heidegger is a monument to German philosophy, yet one is a at a loss naming his English counterpart (not in terms of status, but of similar ideas). The greatest Romanian philosopher built his thought on words which are only aproximately translatable in any other language.

What's really needed is suum cuique. Universal, abstract, impersonal solutions are not only doomed to fail, but they will bring about disaster when (and precisely because) applied in the wrong historical, social, religious and cultural circumstances.

[Florestan]

Have a photo, me a few weeks back

Cool!

[Sean]

Okay Greg, all very interesting, thanks; I guess I have little motivation for language learning myself, but do like to improve my English and update several files on it.

Note that Western speakers when learning another language have more respect for it than non-Westerners do- Westerners are used to language, and society, as sophisticated and complex, not simplistic and crude. They do not write utter garbage in the language they're learning and try to pass it off as just fine- they know they can't do that, while non-Westerns don't know.

[Florestan]

OH, btw, I remember this one post you made years ago saying something like Japanese often omits the word "I" because it's a "society where the self is not important" or something like that. Can't remember if I responded to that, but just wanted to clarify that they usually omit anything that could be understood through context, like we sometimes do in casual speech in English. They omit "you" just as much.

That's exactly the case with Romanian. We omit not only I and you, but also he, she, it, we and they. Actually, when I read a book in which "he" or "she" pops up every two propositions then it is either (badly) translated from another language or written in bad Romanian. And God is my witness that the self is just as important on the banks of Lower Danube that on the banks of Thames or Seine or Potomac.

[Sean]

Florestan, relativism stinks, you know that. It doesn't follow from there being different languages and cultures that they're all equal in all ways; credit where credit's due and criticism where criticism's due. Those who want to be weather vanes and jellyfish must do as they feel but there are objective standards and a universal humanity, intuitively perceived if not intellectually demonstrable.

[Florestan]

there are objective standards and a universal humanity, intuitively perceived if not intellectually demonstrable.

For me, the objective standards and the universal humanity resides in Christianity, both theologically, philosophically and socially --- and I mean Greek Orthodox Christianity,  although the term is historically inaccurate.

For you, Christianity of any type is anathema.

What's to be done?

[Sean]

My regrets if you've gleaned that from me at some point. Christianity is a very valid path to personal development and experience of transcendent values.

Generally speaking I don't think it's quite the best path for the reason that it's based on principles and concepts which always have exceptions, and which connote the dire ideas of conversion and proselytization. The dharmic religions by contrast are more abstractly defined but nonetheless Christianity it may well be the best one for you. The whole nature of Western civilization is based on concept and principle...

There is only one God but many names and hence we have much more in common than not.

[Florestan]

Christianity is a very valid path to personal development and experience of transcendent values.

Why, thank you very much! Except that Christianity is emphatically not a path to personal development and experience of transcendent value --- it is the truth, the way and the life.

Generally speaking I don't think it's quite the best path for the reason that it's based on principles and concepts which always have exceptions, and which connote the dire ideas of conversion and proselytization.

I have no intention to proselytize, much less to convert anyone.

The dharmic religions by contrast are more abstractly defined but nonetheless Christianity it may well be the best one for you.

Whether Christianity is best for me is completely immaterial. It would still be the one true religion even if Buddhism were best for me. Religion is not a matter of picking the one most suitable for one's needs in the free market of beliefs.

The whole nature of Western civilization is based on concept and principle...

Each and every civilization is based on concept and principle. Different concepts and principles, different civilizations.

There is only one God but many names and hence we have much more in common than not.

I beg to differ. The Judeo-Christian God is emphatically neither Allah nor Brahman nor The Great Architect  of the Universe. We do have in common our human nature.

[ibanezmonster]

That's exactly the case with Romanian. We omit not only I and you, but also he, she, it, we and they. Actually, when I read a book in which "he" or "she" pops up every two propositions then it is either (badly) translated from another language or written in bad Romanian. And God is my witness that the self is just as important on the banks of Lower Danube that on the banks of Thames or Seine or Potomac.

Interesting! Is the omission due to the verb conjugations which already indicate the subject, like Spanish?

The thing about Japanese is that it is like English in the sense that the conjugations don't indicate the subject of the verb, so you'd naturally expect them to use the subject almost all of the time, like English. But I think possibly the main reason why it's omitted so much is because it's more of a mouthful.

Example sentence: "Ore ga itte kuru yo" is usually just "itte kuru yo" ("I'm leaving").

You've got three (often four) syllables in Japanese to express something in English that'd be one syllable. So anyone would be quicker to omit something like that in speech.

Another interesting point in that sentence is how oddly specific Japanese can be over English, even though it is often more vague. Not only do you have spoken exclamation point at the end, but you also have a phrase that really means "I'm going and coming back," whereas in English it's just implied whether you're coming back or not depending on the context.