--- In [email protected], "raunchydog" <raunchy...@...> wrote: > > The Vedic Atom went to PAC Pal from Fairfield in late > summer of 1980. We were there just about 2 months until > Maharishi invited us to join him in India. We arrived > in India in November just in time for Diwali. The Atom > returned to PAC Pal the following March. We were there > another two months, then we shipped out to Palo Alto. > I made a commitment to stay with the Atom and stay I > did, until the Fall of 1981. A whole year. It was the > most ego bruising experience of my life. It was a > combination of being in the military and being married > to ten people at the same time. The dictum was, "Agree > on everything." I gave it my all and it wasn't easy. > Everything I felt or experienced with my senses as > "reality" everything I thought was urgently important, > turned out to be not important at all. The Atom ground > my ego into toasty-o's. I had nothing left of "me" to > hang on to. Resistance was futile.
Raunchy, on this note from the Borg :-), and hopefully more in the spirit of "I don't know- ness" than cynicism, I have to ask you a question: Where did this "dictum" you speak of *come from*? I'm curious because in the past few days you have made some seemingly contradictory state- ments about your TMO experience. This is just the latest of them, so I was hoping you could clear up which of them is true and which is maybe not quite so true. The first such quote was on Saturday morning my time, probably still Friday night your time. You said: > Maharishi is a product of his culture and he was true > to it. We could not have expected anything otherwise. > He did not fit into our culture and he never asked > anyone to fit into his. That seems fairly definitive -- "He never asked anyone to fit into his [culture or way of doing things]." And yet just a few hours later, you said: > Yep. We were on the program, every minute of every day. > That is what I signed on for. I wasn't drafted into > the military. I joined. We were loyal soldiers on a > mission of peace. No one held a gun to my head and > told me to march. No one fired a shot. This confuses me. If no one "held a gun to your head," what was this "dictum" you now speak about? You go on to say: > I didn't surrender to Maharishi's "control." I willingly > embraced the experience of being with him. No one forced > me to do anything. I was there because I loved him and > felt I was doing what little I could for a noble purpose, > world peace. Again, this language does not seem to jibe with your word "dictum." Who or what "dictated" this "dictum" of "Agree on everything" to you? You speak of how "it wasn't easy" to *follow* this "dictum." You speak of how it "ground your ego into toasty-o's." While colorful in a break- fast cereal sort of way, I'm left wondering WHERE this "dictum" that rendered you a cereal product CAME FROM. You go on to say that "Resistance was futile." Resistance against WHAT? Resistance against WHOM? A "dictum" is defined in Mr. Dictionary as "a) a formal pronouncement of a principle, proposition, or opinion or b) an observation intended or regarded as authoritative. WHO or WHAT was the "authority" in question here? Where did this "dictum" of "Agree on everything" COME FROM? And if in fact it came from Maharishi, how does that jibe with your statement that "He did not fit into our culture and he never asked anyone to fit into his?" It seems to me that asking a group of women to "Agree on everything" as a lifestyle is very MUCH asking someone to fit into a culture in which an "authority" (one's spiritual teacher) tells them what to do, and they just mindlessly do it, as if...uh...resistance is futile. Perhaps you have a different way of explaining why you agreed to such an artificial lifestyle if you were NOT "following orders" and trying to fit into Maharishi's culture. As you said earlier, "I report, you decide." Please "report" on this seeming contradiction.
