In my early days in the TMO from '72 to '78 there always was some structured activity for people to share and talk about their experiences. This was not discouraged in the least. But starting with the big Amherst course in '79 this pretty much stopped. It does seem rather ironic that a spiritual movement who's primary goal is enlightenment does not encourage its members to talk about their experiences regarding this goal. I've always seen this as a political decision. I believe Bevan et al wanted to hold on to the interpretive power or the sanctioned narrative of enlightenment. This then assured them of the "purity of the teaching" and sole control over the meaning of enlightenment. God forbid there could be people out there in the TMO in higher states of consciousness who disagreed with MMY or the TMO. These people had to be marginalized. And they were by not allowing personal talk of enlightenment. Enlightenment was only discussed as an inspiration to continue with some program or to adhere to some organizational rule. So now the TMO discourse of enlightenment is filled with meaningless buzz words used to control rather than to deepen understanding. This seems to happen to all spiritual organizations when those in power have no experiences that gave rise to the spiritual movement in the first place. Then the picture frame becomes more important than the picture.
   
TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

snip


And there is a good reason for this. If they had
started having "good experiences" and tried to talk
about them within the TMO, what would have happened
to them? Among the teachers, even the teachers of
so-called advanced techniques, there is no one who
has been trained to deal with such experiences. In
the general milieu, the "We don't speak about our
experiences" dogma has been interpreted as "Anyone
who does is delusional and should be put down and
shunned."








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