From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bronte Baxter Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:45 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] To Rick Archer/ On Reciting God's Name
Rick Archer contributed: "Repetition aloud of His name is better than praise. Better still is its faint murmur. But the best is repetition within the mind -- and that is meditation.... Better than such broken thought is its steady and continuous flow like the flow of oil or of a perennial stream." - Ramana Maharshi Bronte writes: Thank you, Rick Archer and Ramana Maharishi, for providing a beautiful example of Indian spiritual brainwashing. Whose name are you guys repeating day in and day out, surrendering to it so fully that it becomes your very stream of consciousness? Not the name of the Infinite, boys, because THAT has no name! Of course it doesn’t, but many things in the relative can be vehicles to the infinite, and mantras serve that purpose particularly well. Rick, you've told us in this forum that you do mantras given you by Amma, and I know from my research t hat her mantras entails names and homage of various gods. There are, for example, "the Saraswati mantras." So it is not the Infinite with which you are uniting your mind, but with individuals called devas, individuals whom the Indian scriptures clearly show are self-serving, desire-driven, imperfect beings. I am presuming Ramana M. promotes the use of similar mantras. "Repetition aloud of His name is better than praise." says RM -- whose name, Rick? God is not a He. God transcends nomenclature. If you are uniting your consciousness to a He, She or a name, you are selling yourself out to possession by an entity, not to oneness with the Primordial Formless Mind. What you attain through such measures is not Brahman but Shakti. Shakti bequeathed by the worshipped god, who is pleased and appeased by your devotions. In offering her your mind, your stream of consciousness, your will, your personhood, you offer yourself up to be devoured over time, encouraged on with chocolates and endorphines, until all that is left of you will be a bliss-filled shell, a numbed-out zombified personhood, incapable of feeling or doing anything that makes existence truly worth living. A person who follows such practices is not on the path of Brahman but of possession. Possession is the reason behind gurus promoting worship of the gods and mantra meditation. Possessed by the gods themselves, having surrendered their will, desires and independent thinking to these beings, Shakti-filled yogis move to the next rung of the ladder, drawing in the next generation of innocent victims. None of this jibes in the slightest with my own experience nor my observation of people whom I consider to be enlightened. As I recall, HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Power-Arthur-Avalon/dp/0486230589"http://www. amazon.com/Serpent-Power-Arthur-Avalon/dp/0486230589 is a good book for understanding the mechanics of mantras. But I think Vaj and others here more qualified than I may already have shot holes in your “possession” theory. Those who didn't reach "enlightenment" through mantra meditation but other Eastern means, such as the Eastern version of kundulini meditation, nonetheless are brainwashed by their gurus to believe that the gods are benign and that all is perfect in the universe. So they never challenge the system or lift a finger to promote Brahman-inspired cosmic individuality. Therefore the gods are pleased with these guys, although they don't possess them. Such "yogis" have willingly surrendered their minds, leaving their outer shell behind in the world. Hence they are no threat to the system that promotes the gods feasting on the minds and energy of physically incarnate beings. It is because my friends do mantra meditation and blindly walk the way of the primrose path that I am so concerned for them, and the reason I heartily challenge the Eastern religion regimen. I don't want to lose these beautiful people to their trusting path of spiritual suicide. To me, the philosophy they've swallowed is not unlike the radical Moslem teaching that tells young men to commit physical suicide because when they do they will be rewarded with a heaven beyond their wildest dreams. I think this may be true if people buy into the cult-like mentality that develops in many groups – believing things because their teacher says them rather than because their experience corroborates them. Hence the quote I put on the home page of FFL: "Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide." ~ Dharma-pada, Buddha Shakyamuni To experience the supreme and eternal bliss of "Brahman," trusting Westerners follow the instructions of gurus, unquestioningly taking their word for where there lives are headed. Just as their Moslem counterparts unquestioningly accept their teaching about the dozens of virgins that await them in heaven after their acts as suicide assasins. They believe this bilge because their religion tells them it's so. My friends believe the Indian promises because THEIR religion tells them it's so. But both stories are lies designed to exploit, IMHO. Heaven is neither 20 virgins nor detached impersonal bliss. What it is exactly we must together work to figure out. Through spiritual practices that do not pay toll to self-serving entities, that focus on the Infinite exclusively. We can do this, because we are made of the Infinite, and it is the nature of That to wake up in this world and know itself. But we have to ditch the gods, the mantras and the gurus. We have to put on our big-boy pants and climb the mountain for ourselves, trusting in our experience, our wits, and our common sense. And giving ear and support to one another. That helps, but if that’s all we do, it may be the blind leading the blind. I have no problem accepting that there are spiritually advanced people just as there are athletically advanced people, musically advanced people, etc. Want to become a golf pro? Study with the best golf pros you can find. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.37/1042 - Release Date: 10/1/2007 6:59 PM
