Tantra in Pynchon's Against the Day

[David Morris]

Tantra is the low road to Zen's high road.  Both reach the goal, but by
very different means. Tantra is inclusive of all experience as vehicles of
real value . Zen is exclusive of all experience's real value, all being
illusion and distraction. Tantra is "wet."  Zen is "dry."  Tantra is body.
Zen is mind.  Historically, Zen was exclusively for men and upper castes.
Tantra was open to all, including women and lower castes. Both are valid
ways to awakening.

My path is Tantra,
David Morris

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 8:39 PM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
wrote:

>
> "The noted Quaternionist Dr. V. Ganesh Rao of Calcutta University was
> seeking a gateway to the Ulterior, as he liked to phrase it, having come to
> recognize the wisdom of simply finding silence and allowing Mathematics and
> History to proceed as they would." (p. 130)
>
> https://oak.ucc.nau.edu/jgr6/pynchon_against.htm
>
> John Rothfork: Tantra in Pynchon's *Against the Day*
>
> > ... What Pynchon calls grace seems to be related to what Hindus call
> *rasa* that invites us to * taste* or savor experience rather than
> substituting talk, ideas, and explanations for the experience. (...) The
> answer to the complexities offered by the novel, if we can call it an
> answer, seems to be *rasa,* beauty, or grace ... <
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasa_(aesthetics)
>
>
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