"In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming." - By Robert Pirsig (p.5 Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance- ZMM)
Although I am the worst cyclist of our 3 person family; I can truly vouch for the above statement after running another 10 k run last month. Keeping in mind that I started running only about 4 years back with runner girls India
About 6-7 years ago, ZMM was recommended to me by a colleague. Before that, all my studies revolved around Physics. So my understanding was primarily limited to “Classical”. During the first reading most of the stuff was beyond my comprehension. Although, I tried hard I gave up after about 200 pages. I kept thinking that Phaedrus was an imaginary character. Little did I think that Pirsig is actually trying to tell us about the transition that he went through in reality.
However, this time, I challenged myself to read it till the end and really discovered a lot of things. My last few weeks have been full of a lot of Zen and not motorcycle but a little bit of home maintenance. As a school teacher who works long hours during the year, to have such a nice summer break is a luxury. Especially when you are not restrained by a bell ringing every 45 minutes and dictating you and when it is alright to sit and not do anything! By the way, NOT DOING ANYTHING- is one of the hardest things to do. Because when you are not doing anything…you are still doing something i.e. you are trying to not do anything.
Anyway, leave that stupid recursion apart and coming back to ZMM….
This time, the reason I found this book amazing and overwhelming is because I went through Pirsig’s biography (thanks to the internet!). In the early sixties Pirsig was diagnosed with depression, schizophrenia and was even given electric shocks. I am sure, by the time he started writing ZMM he must have figured out perfectly what that so called mental illness or insanity was about. The book is so direct and honest that no where it feels as if you are reading someone else’s Philosophy. The whole idea of being one with the road while riding the bike without viewing oneself separate from the surroundings tells you that he is not an ordinary thinker or a philosophy professor in some big university. That particular mental illness could have been a next link in the human evolution. It is an irony that the rational world of Medicine and Neuroscience is unaware of the processes that a brain could go through in a process of enlightenment. How can a mentally sick person write so beautifully? As you go on reading and pondering over it opens up a complete view of our understandings and most importantly it makes you aware of the myths and dilemmas that you carry. It also brings out the limitations of your knowledge. Unless, it is his own experience it cannot be so true! I could experience the power of now while running so i can tell about it. A book such as this cannot be written without enlightenment. Pirsig's way of story-telling is itself a clear proof that he was able to have a holistic view of the world in which there is no 'I'! I hope some psychotherapist will be able to unfold this mystery of enlightenment in future.
Pirsig himself mentions,
For more than three centuries now the old routes common in this hemisphere have been undercut and almost washed out by the natural erosion and change of the shape of the mountain wrought by scientific truth. The early climbers established paths that were on firm ground with an accessibility that appealed to all, but today the Western routes are all but closed because of dogmatic inflexibility in the face of change. (p. 192 ZMM)
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