--- In [email protected], "amarnath" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > some good points curtis, thanks, > > i have known a TM teacher who has been at it now for 40 years > and if anything his biases and bigotries have increased > > he is now retired > and during the Katarina instead of voluntaring, > he was making big bucks in FEMA > and still is due to his political connections > he was supposed to help those who he looks down upon > > he is all take, take and take
It seems to me that Fairfield is currently experiencing one of those "where the rubber meets the road" tests of its supposed spirit- uality. If, as has been reported here, people "are sandbagging everywhere in Iowa but Fair- field," and the reason for that is that you don't have a river, what are the people of Fairfield doing to help those in Iowa who are less fortunate than they are? I remember living in a small town that was threatened by floods, such that we were all out piling sandbags late at night, wondering if we were going to be able to make the im- provised wall high enough to stop the rise in the river predicted for the next day. Too few bodies, too little time. And then about 200 students from a college about 100 miles away showed up. Nobody "arranged" for them to come to help out, nobody suggested to them that it would be "the neighborly thing to do." Hell, they *weren't* really our neighbors. But they piled into their cars and drove for two hours and then spent all night helping us to fill bags with sand and pile them up. Towards dawn the expected rise in the river arrived and the sandbag dike held and everyone relaxed and shared coffee and donuts contributed by local businesses, and then the students drove back home again, having done a nice thing. So are any of the students at MUM inspired to do a similar "nice thing?" Has there been any indication in the Fairfield community that people are volunteering to help in those areas of Iowa that are affected by these floods, since Fairfield is not? Or are people sitting around either congratulating themselves because the ME and their butt-bouncing have saved them, or as Bob B. did today, implying that those communities not as fortunate as Fairfield might be filled with "wrongdoers," and thus on some level actually "deserve" these floods? Seems to me that this is one of those times where the claims of the TMO are pretty much on the line. Given the several thousand TMers in and around Fairfield, and their length of time practicing TM (collectively, probably in excess of 40-50,000 years of regular daily meditation), if TM *does* help to develop compassion and a sense of caring for others, that will become evident over the next few days as TMers rush to help out their neighbors in distress. If it *doesn't* have any effect on developing com- passion and caring for others, they'll sit at home and watch the flood on TV and wonder if it's going to fuck up their plans for the weekend.
