He was a good philosopher and I'm tired of pretending he wasn't.
>>24747977He seems alright but I'm a little resentful towards him because he's the guy responsible for reducing entire eastern religious traditions to DUDE WEED LMAO in the western psyche. Like all the dipshit stoners/burnouts/shroom freaks who get the most surface level understanding of Daoism or Hinduism and act like they've figured out life's mysteries, it really belittles true believers
>>24748009Boomer CIA circus philosophy
I tried reading him and listening to some lectures, but it seems like a bunch of woo woo nonsense for gullible hippies.
>>24747977Don't like Pearl Jam.
Zen master who drank himself to death, couldn't keep a wife and was a terrible father to children who hate him. Pretty much exactly what I'd expect from a Westerner larping as an eastern mystic guru
>>24747977A very good salesman. Aesthetic orientalist par excellence. Ultimately, a very shallow peddler of western decline.
>>24747977Jung for retards. Same with Joseph Campbell.
>>24748047Unironically. Dope Inc. Is a book that explains this OP
>>24748009>noooo saar my religion is much more complex than dude weed saar!!
>>24749255hating indians is a forced meme.
>>24747977He couldn’t even sell the washed out western version of buddhism and couldn’t integrate anything he said, his life was a complete failure and he dies alone in a cabin from being an alcoholic. All surface, zero depth, if there’s a lesson here it’s that hypnotic calm ASMR talking could get gullible boomers to believe anything. He’s not the only one who figured that out either Osho was doing it much later and he was at least brown for authenticity. If you want a weirdo philosopher using some mangled eastern ideas try Robert Anton Wilson, it’s a hell of a lot more original than this.
>>24748304>>24749576OK but you have to admit it's really comfy when a song samples his lectures
>>24747977As others have stated the fact that he drank himself to death has always seemed like a cautionary tale of acting like a guru in a system that is alien to you. He was clearly (and painfully) missing something important, showing he isn't exactly someone to follow.Westerners already have an ancient platonic tradition of metempsychosis (rebirth), arguably one that even took some inspiration from early Buddhism considering the Greeks made contact with it. It is a system that will be far more intuitive to a western mind.He is an interesting historical character of Asian studies of the times, making very accessible content, being around the psychedelic era and having Seraphim Rose as a student at one point though. But neither he or McKenna seem to have grasped a full metaphysical truth in the end.
>>24749934>My vocation in life is to wonder about at the nature of the universe. This leads me into philosophy, psychology, religion, and mysticism, not only as subjects to be discussed but also as things to be experienced, and thus I make an at least tacit claim to be a philosopher and a mystic. Some people, therefore, expect me to be their guru or messiah or exemplar, and are extremely disconcerted when they discover my “wayward spirit” or element of irreducible rascality, and say to their friends, “How could he possibly be a genuine mystic and be so addicted to nicotine and alcohol?” Or have occasional shudders of anxiety? Or be sexually interested in women? Or lack enthusiasm for physical exercise? Or have any need for money? Such people have in mind an idealized vision of the mystic as a person wholly free from fear and attachment, who sees within and without, and on all sides, only the translucent forms of a single divine energy which is everlasting love and delight, as which and from which he effortlessly radiates peace, charity, and joy. What an enviable situation! We, too, would like to be one of those, but as we start to meditate and look into ourselves we find mostly a quaking and palpitating mess of anxiety which lusts and loathes, needs love and attention, and lives in terror of death putting an end to its misery. So we despise that mess, and look for ways of controlling it and putting “how the true mystic feels” in its place, not realizing that this ambition is simply one of the lusts of the quaking mess, and that this, in turn, is a natural form of the universe like rain and frost, slugs and snails, flies and disease. When the “true mystic” sees flies and disease as translucent forms of the divine, that does not abolish them. I—making no hard-and-fast distinction between inner and outer experience—see my quaking mess as a form of the divine, and that doesn’t abolish it either. But at least I can live with it.
>>24749938I don't have ill will towards the man and I don't think I showed him disrespect or denied he was a mystic in some sense of the word just because of his end. Both his and McKenna's lectures or recorded talks rather were important to me. But I don't think they are ultimate paths to follow.
>>24749494Maybe, but it also corresponds pretty well to reality in my experience, even if accidentally. Anyway, anon is right. India has basically adopted the western conceptions of eastern religion. Modern day easterners' conception of religion is just the western evangelists' and colonialists' misunderstandings, reappropriated. The ancient depth, meaning and complexity, if it was ever there, is gone.
>>24749494No i see legit reasons not to like them
>>24749494they fill up the internet with quantity that degrades it, and many western countries too. Their culture today is also largely connected and americanized. So I wouldn't call the dislike forced.The comment you're replying to is unwarranted though.
>>24748304This isn't a thread about his private life. And moralfagging is always just projection.
>>24748606Jung wasn't a Buddhist, dumbfuck.
>>24750303It's all satanism and worship of ego
>>24750403Buddhism is literally about letting go of the ego.Christianity, meanwhile, is all about validating it.
>>24748304>Pretty much exactly what I'd expect from a Westerner larping as an eastern mystic guruAs a Brit who lived in the East for some years, I've seen my fair share of supposed authentic buddhist rolling around in very fancy cars, or wearing a very shiny Rolex with their Kasaya. They are all larping these days.
