> > You may have missed out. I worked with a spiritual > > teacher who took his students to Disneyland often. > > http://ramalila.net/RoadTripMind/rtm13.html > > Unc, how have you "come to terms (if that's the right > term)" with your powerful experiences with Rama and > his rather bizarre death and less than "enlightened" > behavior at times? > -Peter
In two words, "Shit happens." I had already left his study a couple of years before he died, and thus wasn't as affected by it as a lot of folks who hung in there to the end. I don't really know anything about the "whys" of it all; it's a koan. I spent some time pondered it in one of the stories I wrote, at: http://ramalila.net/RoadTripMind/rtm53.html As I suggested in a recent post, for many reasons I do not believe in the idea that the enlightened are perfect and don't make mistakes. I don't think they're any different than anyone else, except on the level of subjec- tive realization. So I have no tendency to suggest that odd or questionable behavior means that someone wasn't enlightened. All it suggests to me is that they indulge in odd or questionable behavior. So did many teachers whom history regards as enlightened. Big deal. I'm also not a person who is terribly impressed by the ability to perform siddhis, and wasn't when I met the Rama guy. I got to see and experience some neat stuff, and enjoyed it, but I did not then and do not now make any link between being able to, say, levitate and turn invisible and do fascinating things with light and that person's state of consciousness. The main thing that impressed me about the guy was his ability to meditate. When you sat with him in the early days, it was just silence -- pure samadhi. It was *impossible* to have a thought. All the other stuff was bells and whistles, IMO. To be honest, not all of his students felt as I did. They definitely consider the enlightened perfect by definition, so his suicide fucked with their heads Big-Time. If you believe that your teacher is enlightened and that the enlight- ened are by definition perfect, then you have to jump through a lot of mental hoops to justify suicide. I'm not much in touch with them, so I can't tell you how they've come to terms with things. For me, it was a wild and wacky Mister Toad ride that I shall always be thankful for but don't spend a lot of time missing or even thinking about. Right here and now is too wild and wacky and wonderful to leave much time for that. Unc To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
