Unc: > > I consider true levitation and other siddhis in the > > same boat. Unless you consider the Rama guy I worked > > with enlightened, my suspicion is that if you thought > > it through, you'd stop considering levitation a signpost > > of enlightenment, too. He could hover and walk around > > in mid-air like gangbusters; does that mean he was > > enlightened? Me, I don't think so. Only enlightenment > > means you're enlightened.
Lurk: > Okay, unc. When you came on board, I checked Rama out. I read some > interviews he did, and I came to a conclusion based on these > interviews and his first interview in particular, that this guy was > absolutely, positively enlightened. In fact if there are said to > be 12, or 5 or some number of enlightened people on the planet at > any given time, he was one of them. Then I read more and learned > about some of the peculuarities about him, I could easily see > where people would dismiss him as part or all fraud. But I have > to say, from what little I have read, and it has not been > extensive, this guy was enlightened. There are days that I agree with you. Mostly I just say, truthfully, that I don't know. There is absolutely no question in my mind that when I first ran into him (1981), I was sitting in the room with enlightenment. When you meditated with the guy, there was not the slightest possibility of having a thought. Instant samadhi, sometimes for hours on end. Towards the end of my time with him, I felt that less and less, and finally he pretty much stopped meditating with his students, so I can't say for sure whether the same energy was still present. I left a couple of years before he died, and only saw him a few times during that period, so I also can't say much about that period, and what he was like just before he beat feet. > Maybe he decided to push the envelope in some odd ways, > but I don't think he could ever lose that total enlightenment. > I know you don't care to discuss this subject too much, but > just wanted to make these comments. It's Ok, really. I just didn't want to be perceived as pushing Rama or his trip here. I don't really want to be perceived that way anywhere. I cherish the time I spent with him, and am immensely grateful for all he taught me. But at the same time, if he were still alive, I wouldn't be studying with him. Go figure. The having enlightenment and losing it bit is the mindfuck. Some people don't think it can happen. Their dogma says so and their intuition says so. I know better, and knew before I ever met Rama, because it's happened to me. I was having long (2-3 weeks) CC flashes back when I was still in the TM movement, the first on my TTC and a few other times subsequently. Then things happened and I left the TM movement and was on my own for a while, and the flashes of CC continued. Then I ran into Rama and they continued some more. Then I left Rama's study and was on my own again and they still happen from time to time. I've gotten to the point where I don't really seek them or miss them when they go away. The point is that, so far, they've gone away. One day I'm kissing the swamp of Maya and the next morning the transcendent is there 24/7 for a week or so, and then it's back to Maya. Go figure. So the thing with Rama was, having experienced what I'm pretty damned sure was CC, even if for brief periods of time, I kinda recognized that energy when I ran into him. I walked into a room and here was this preppy-looking Western guy sitting on a day-glo afghan and talking about normal, everyday L.A. things and being really, really funny. I like funny; I was down with funny. And I was down with the things he talked about; Rama could *definitely* talk the talk. But I wasn't buying into the enlightened thing yet. Until we mediated. He put some Tangerine Dream on the sound system and told us just to sit and close our eyes and feel our heart chakras. Then he did the same thing, and it was fuckin' OVER for me as a skeptic, man. There was no "me" to be skeptical. And over the years I felt that same energy *coexist*, in activity, with the damnedest things. Movies, Disneyland, the Sonora desert in the middle of the night, Windows on the World, the red light district of Amsterdam. It was like having Zaphod Beebelbrox and his "Anything for a weird life" philosophy as a spiritual teacher. :-) I loved every minute of it in those early years. So it's really not his outrageous behavior in some areas like sex with his students or driving a Porsche or renting Carnegie Hall for his talks that bothered me. I was *down* with that stuff; it was cutting edge. But somewhere along the Way, things got weird, and finally they just got too weird for me. It got to the point where the only thing that was keeping me there was the hope that he'd sit and meditate with us again, and I'd feel that same eternity that nailed me the first night I met him. And after waiting and waiting, when he *did* finally sit and meditate with us, that energy just wasn't there, at least to the same extent as when I met him. I am perfectly willing to accept that this might be a drop in *my* perception, not his state of consciousness. But if I learned nothing else from him, I did learn to trust my intuition, and it was telling me to leave. I left. I'm happy I did. I still miss his laugh sometimes, but I wasn't hearing it that often towards the last days I spent with him, either. I appreciate you taking the time to check him out, and I certainly appreciate your feelings about him. He was without question the most interesting person I have ever encountered in this incarnation. I may never encounter another quite as interesting. I certainly haven't in the time since I last saw him. He's a puzzle, an enigma, a koan. He was when he was alive, and he is in death. If my words and feelings about him, either here or in my book, sometimes seem contradictory, it's because he was a 6-foot-4 walking *mass* of contradictions. In my opinion, enlightenment was a daily companion to those contradictions for many years. It might have been his companion right up to the end. I don't know. I really don't know. I probably never will. And I thank him for that, too. 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/
