below --- In [email protected], Vaj <vajradh...@...> wrote: > > > On May 31, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Alex Stanley wrote: > > >>> It would be refreshing if FFL had some of these mythical Strong > >>> Buddhists, content with Here And Now. FFL's Buddhists mostly just > >>> vent their discontent with the Here And Now of TM and TMers and/or > >>> the There And Then of MMY. > >> > >> I don't believe that's what Turq is talking about. If these > >> "Buddhists" were doing the same thing he's describing in TM folks, > >> then there'd be many posts on "Shambhala on earth" being posted by > >> Buddhist zealots and TB's about some magical time that their > >> collective practices and numbers of adherents would bring about a > >> remarkable golden age of world harmony as all the cities would be > >> torn > >> down and rebuilt to be like Buddhist mandalas. > >> > >> I must have missed all these posts, could you point me to some to > >> some > >> Alex. One? > >> > > > > Oh, I'm sorry, I must have missed the restriction on this thread > > that any example of not being content with Here And Now has to be an > > exact analog of TMers not being content with Here And Now. > > > Well maybe you'll pay better attention to the here-and-now next > time! :-)
Vaj, my friend, we need to talk. I'm wondering how your mind works when it comes to deciding if others are speaking truths and/or are speaking truly. There's a big difference between these two concepts, yes? I'm worried that I'll piss you off like I did with my "Curtis and music" post, but, please, let me ramble, will ya? Consider: If someone is bitching about what a TB thinks, they're griping about the content of someone else's here and now. To me, everyone is always reporting about their experience of living in the here and now -- obviously, right? No matter what the "extremely recent" content of the mind may be, reporting about such is "dead dog's teeth being attended" in that the mind's "branch jumping monkey" habit is to go to the "best aspect" of any moment of consciousness. Even a homeless person, drunk on the street, can be found to be attending the euphoric sensations -- to those fruits instead of all the other kinds of thoughts he/she might have. In the line to the Nazi showers, those minds surely had monkeys jumping to "it's just a shower," or even, "what a bright sunny day." Are not TBs allowed to have just such fruits too in their lives? Do we need to poke everyone in the line and tell them they're going to be killed? Whatever anyone posts here is what it is -- a product of a mind that's being attended by a witness. The products of consciousness are necessarily subject to the challenge that the blind men faced when reporting their conclusions about an elephant. Therefore, anyone's opinion is truth as they know it. It simply cannot be a bad thing if folks share their truths so that a "whole elephant" might be grasped with clarity. They are speaking truly, but not necessarily about truth. If I am a TB, and I'm thinking something like: "The world is a terrible place and only the TM technique can save it," that's a thought I'm having right now about the "world's elephant," and if I'm mindful of that thought then I'm as fully reporting my here and now's processing as anyone else is reporting their attending of their own thought streams. Attending any object of consciousness is a spiritual event, yes? Hindu teachers universally agree that even ordinary life is a life of yagya -- that is, desires are being "burnt" by fulfilling them. Work-a-day life is evolving, so, I say that one must at least honor that in others. They may be thinking that an elephant is solely tree-like and are certain the other blind men are wrong, but at least the person is 100% truthfully reporting their POV. That's truth being honored by them, and I think we should honor that aspect of their personalities. To me, all folks are witnessing their robot's clockworks, and the various clockworks describe "reality" in various ways, natch. To pay attention to the content of one's own mind's thoughts about another's mind's contents and find fault of some sort is of little use. The blind men must all confer if a whole elephant is to be known. Get that? We must have impartial truths reported to be able to assemble them into one whole. So it's okay for you to report your contents about TM TB's thought streams, but miss not that finding fault is finding fault is finding fault. If one thinks that faults are being found, fine, report that and see if it harmonizes with the reports of others, but keep in mind that it's merely one way to describe an elephant, and observed faults may be as misleading as "trunk-like legs." Given the above reasoning, even Nab is operating in a fully spiritual fashion and merely reporting on how his clockworks "churn" about such. To the degree that Nab can apprehend his subtle mechanics, we can assign a rating of how adroit his "attentioning processes" are. If Nab is very good at doing such, and can get THAT "into words," he has as deep a truth to teach here as anyone, and he'll be able to instruct us about the nature of consciousness no matter the content of his mind. Get that? If Nab could be utterly clear about "Nab-ness," he'd be a world teacher. There is no such thing as "one opinion being superior to another opinion," since, by definition, opinion is not expected to present itself as factual truth but merely is theory. If I ask your opinion, you are 100% sure to give me that, but if I ask for facts, then that's a whole 'nother deal. If Nab's opinion is that TM is the best form of spirituality, who am I to shoot arrows at how his clockworks' gears are turning? If Maharishi refers to himself as "Maharishi," it is what it is, but if he says, "Consciousness works like this," then we have the basis of debate. I have had some of the most poignant moments with the world's "almost dead dogs." Giving five bucks to a burnt-out bum in a shopping center parking lot, exchanging a few words, can find me blinded by the illumination of the bum's white teeth. His clockworks might be a mess, his real teeth stained and yellowed, but the presence of his witness is unmistakable. When I knock on such doors, someone answers! Astounding, eh? There's your white teeth! A spirit within may be witnessing a cacophony but there is nothing noisy about the witness. To me, it is devastating to meet someone with a broken life in that the fact that they are "forced" into witnessing it is a reminder that I too am "a drunk with paper bag" whenever I explain myself to the world. I too am imprisoned within a clockworks that churns and churns and churns before my lidless inner eye. I too am begging for "five bucks worth of validation" from the world. Though I but partially walk the talk and to live the implied morality above, to me it is very spiritual to enter the POVs of others and honor their paths as equal to my own. Now, all that said, I ask you, "What is your true intent regarding the contents of the minds of others here?" Edg
