--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [email protected], t3rinity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > > > See, we maybe conditioned to stop the car when the traffic > lights > > > turn > > > > red. You can provisionally accept it, validate it as true, > based on > > > > observation etc. The conditioning is that you connect two > facts, the > > > > red traffic lights, and the need to stop the car. > > > > > > But that's a different type of conditioning; > > > that's more like Pavlov's dogs. I was talking > > > (and thought you were talking) about becoming > > > convinced that something is true. > > > > But its all connected. You experience something, and then you are > > being told something about that experience. (Or are otherwise no > > need for all the lectures!) What you know, reinforces the > > experience in a certain way. Then the reinforced experience > > reinforces your belief about it again. You cannot isolate the two. > > It seems terribly important *to* the conditioned ego > to believe that it hasn't been conditioned, that it > has thought up (or "verified") all these concepts > that have been taught to it on its own. The bottom > line, however, is that it rarely, if ever, deviates > from the concepts taught to it. And also feels the > compulsion to argue their obvious "truth" with others.
Speaking for myself concerning TM, it's not quite so black-and-white as all that. The concepts about TM that have been taught to me fall into three general categories in terms of how I regard them: firm convictions, working assumptions, and those I've discarded. The working assumptions are the largest category, and the firm convictions are the smallest. The firm convictions are the only ones I would argue the "truth" of (although I wouldn't say their "truth" is obvious; in most cases it isn't). I also argue for the working assumptions, but not in terms of their "truth," rather in terms of their apparent logic and reasonableness when they're properly understood (in many cases arguments against them are grounded in misunderstanding). Those who enjoy making fun of TMers because of their supposed "conditioning" (not Michael) frequently mistake the second type of argument for the first. They seem unable to distinguish between "This is what MMY says and why it makes sense to me" and "What MMY says is true." As noted, still other ideas that I once held as working assumptions, I've since discarded because I have found that they don't make as much sense as I'd originally thought, or are disconfirmed by my experience or observation. Some ideas I've put in a very low-probability category; I don't rule them out, but they're so unlikely to be true that they don't qualify as working assumptions. Michael is quite right to say that you can't know for sure that convictions aren't a function of conditioning (i.e., what you've been taught). I wasn't arguing that you can tell, but rather that it's possible in principle that some are not, and therefore the claim that if you believe something you've been taught, therefore the belief can only be a function of conditioning--of having been taught that belief, rather than having become convinced of it on the basis of your own experience and observation--is not an established fact and should not be proclaimed as such. Bashing other people's spiritual paths is *so* much easier when you can find a way to reduce things to a black-and-white formula, but such a formula is rarely accurate enough to justify the bashing. 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/
