Tantra in Pynchon's Against the Day

Thu May 4 03:07:32 CDT 2017

Two informative books on Tantra in English:

David Gordon White: Kiss of the Yogini. "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Contexts [2003]
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo3617827.html

Gavin Flood: The Tantric Body. The Secret Tradition Of Hindu Religion [2006]
http://www.ibtauris.com/en/Books/Humanities/Religion%20%20beliefs/Hinduism/The%20Tantric%20Body?menuitem=%7B037F4C0C-953D-44F2-BE4E-A063CD784946%7D

To those interested in a general (primarily ethnographic) introduction to Hinduism in English I recommend the book by --- Axel Michaels: Hinduism: Past and Present [2003], who also contrasts Hinduism with Western religions,  "where the self is preferred to the not-self, and where freedom in the world is more important than liberation from the world."
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7624.html

Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha

Am 04.05.2017 um 04:06 schrieb David Morris:
P definitely fits with Tantra, the low road, inclusive of all experience and peoples.
Tantra's details were historically kept secret, because it embraced sexual energy as a vehicle of transformation.  Tantra's prime goddess is Kundalini, aka Kali, a very fierce female. She is a kick ass V.

David Morris

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 4:58 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com<mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
Informative, very, and somehow P's low but inclusive road is " right" within his vision, IMHO.

Sent from my iPad

On May 2, 2017, at 10:08 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com<mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>> wrote:

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<mailto: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)<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasa_%28aesthetics%29>

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