Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals

by Robert M. Pirsig

Book Overview

The author who captured the spirit of an entire generation with his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance now takes readers on a voyage of poignant and passionate philosophical exploration. "An intellectual rebel's book . . . the writing of a thoughtful, sensitive social and cultural observer".--Washington Post Book World. "Daring, highly original and provocative".--The New York Times. (Philosophy)

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553077376
• ISBN13: 9780553077377
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 409 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Review of "Lila" by Robert Pirsig.

Review of "Lila" by Robert Pirsig. I loved this thought provoking story. It is an impressive and engrossing book. This book surpasses the intensity of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in scope and in the development of the author's concepts of quality and value. It is a daring exposition on objective valuation and it offers a broad appeal. Pirsig shows his metaphysics of quality works in real situations and for life changing decisions. This story can expand your consciousness. Read and enjoy this book. I recommend this book.

Metaphysics of Quality

Review of "Lila" by Robert Pirsig. I loved this thought provoking story. It is an impressive and engrossing book. This book surpasses the intensity of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in scope and in the development of the author's concepts of quality and value. It is a daring exposition on objective valuation and it offers a broad appeal. Pirsig shows his metaphysics of quality works in real situations and for life changing decisions. Open up, expand your consciousness, read and enjoy this book. I recommend this book.

My perspective of Robert M. Pirsig's "Lila."

Robert M. Pirsig's "Lila" is one of the finest and most challenging books in print today. For those of you who have read his, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," (ZMM) and enjoyed the philosophical and mystical challenges there, "Lila" offers even more. I have read "Lila" multiple times. I only recently discovered that lila in Hindu mythology means the never-ending dance of the Divine in an ongoing alternation between the World and the Divine and back again. It is like sacrifice of the Divine to create the World and then sacrifice of the World to create the Divine. Lila is this continual dance. I found the dance a strong metaphor of the main female character in "Lila" and her relationship to Phaedrus. I am unsure Pirsig intended this metaphor, but I suspect he did. In both ZMM and Lila, Pirsig's prime pursuit is the definition and philosophy of quality. He conjoins the epic struggle of mankind to intuit and rationalize the mind-body, subject-object dichotomies. Note that Pirsig would emphasize intuition here and de-emphasize rational thought. In "Lila" he accomplishes three major feats: 1) a non-dichotomous and holistic view of subject-object, 2) a moral value framework for sentient beings, and 3) rules for static and dynamic balance. Holistically, he shows that reality is composed of three things: subject (mind), object (matter), and Quality. He says that objects precede subjects, subjects emerge from objects, and quality occurs where and when subjects become aware of objects. He develops this prescient philosophy while weaving a powerful human story of his quality events with Lila as he pushes his sailing vessel through the waters of the great northeastern US. Second, he develops a beautiful framework consisting of four value layers: intellect, social, biological, and organic. Intellect is his highest value layer and organic is the lowest. He breaks the four layers into two groups: subject and object. The top two layers correspond to subject and the bottom two layers correspond to object. Each layer in the hierarchy has moral precedence over the other. Intellect has the highest moral precedence followed by social, biological, then organic. It is moral for the higher of two layers to dominate the other. It is immoral for a lower layer to dominate a higher layer. This is a profound discovery and for me it is the new value ethics. I see world legal structures eventually adopting this ethical system. Finally, he unifies the static versus dynamic dichotomy. He shows that the world is both static and dynamic and if long-term dynamic world patterns are to work, good static patterns must latch to permit the next dynamic emergence. He does not say so, but I infer that just like his value framework, he sees a static and dynamic framework that scales from zero to infinite space-time intervals. A careful read of "Lila" for those of you who know of quantum theory shows significant correlation to th