--- In [email protected], scienceofabundance <no_re...@...> wrote: > > I agree with most of what you say. He was quite determined from way back in > around 1980 when he appeared on the scene to do whatever MMY asked him and > more. In fact, this is the reason he gives (privately) that MMY chose him to > be "the King" - he always went the extra mile - including the Harvard > debacle and the example you give below. > > This does not take away from his intellectual ability in my opinion - it is a > character trait. > > In contrast, Chopra was asked to behave similarly and basically refused > seeing what he was being asked to become.
I agree that he's a bright guy, but what does detract from his intellectual ability is what he's produced since getting his PhD. His ideas are complete junk and given that he's had a top notch education he should have realized that they are complete junk. All the other highly educated and clever people around him should also have realized that they're total nonsense, but no one has spoken out. It's much the same with John Hagelin, very bright guy and so on, but he's spent so much time thinking up daft ideas to present to Maharishi that he's lost the ability to tell sense from nonsense. He now thinks people sitting in a dome in the middle of America can move trillions of tons of water around the Pacific to create the developing El-Nino which is inhibiting hurricane formation this year. Because the TMO has attracted a lot of very bright people, who have then behaved as if they've forgotten their education, then we have to ask how that process works. Taken individually these people are usually very nice guys (with obvious exceptions), but when they get together a group dynamic takes over which makes them behave otherwise. Irving Janis studied this phenomena "Why do groups of highly intelligent people do some really dumb things" and came up with the notion of "groupthink", (google it you'll see that the TMO has all the characteristics). A combination of peer pressure, the Milgram phenomena, the fact that people are doing mental techniques which increase susceptibility to suggestion, ideology, silencing dissenting views and so on, all conspire to create an environment where some very dumb ideas can flourish unchecked. It certainly is a character trait which allows some people to always follow orders without question, and other people to stop at some point and start to question the orders. I'm not impressed with Deepak's output, but the fact that he did have the integrity to stop at some point and say "whoooa this is getting too crazy, I'm outa here" is a point in his favor. The question isn't how clever John Hagelin is, or Tony or any of the other very bright people the movement used to be able to attract. That can be taken as read. The question is why they're behaving as if they've had an operation to surgically remove their intelligence. Eventually the extremely dumb ideas have to make contact with reality. It'll be rather like cleaning up after a particularly wild party involving mind altering substances. "Did we really spend millions on a university in the middle of nowhere that no one wants to go to?", "Did we really dress up as kings and issue decrees?", "Did we really think we could move zillions of tons of water around the Pacific by thought alone?", "What are these tall empty buildings doing all over the place? Towers of Invincibility?", "Oh my God, how embarrassing. (sigh) That was some powerful acid"
