--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > "Is it live or is it Memorex?" > > > > 'Nuff said. > > Says Barry, neatly but entirely inadvertently > stepping on his own point. The Memorex slogan > highlights the *accuracy* of the reproduction-- > one can't even be sure which one is hearing, the > live or the recorded performance. That's similar > to the situation with MMY's teaching, unlike with > that of Jesus, where we don't even have the > Memorex.
Again dealing with the issue, let's take an example of "MMY's teaching," and have you tell us what his teaching "really" was, based on the recordings. If you were able to get ahold of tapes from Squaw Valley 1968, you would hear a fellow who was sitting next to me ask Maharishi about the siddhis, in particular things like levitation. Maharishi's response was, "Capture the fort." He told this fellow, and the whole audience to have *nothing* to do with the siddhis. He said emphatically that they were a *distrac- tion* to the enlightenment process, possibly dangerous, and unnecessary because if one transcended regularly via TM you would "capture the fort" with no need to waste time trying to capture outlying "minor outposts" like "flying." Cut to the 1976-77 period, during which MMY taught emphatically that everyone should learn to "fly" using the TM-Sidhi techniques he was experimenting with, because it would greatly speed their own enlightenment. This is also recorded on Memorex. Later being able to actually levitate became the "proof" of full enlightenment or Unity, also recorded on tape. Then it became less about the individual, and more of a thing you do for the world, creating powerful waves of invincibility for the nation and the world. Again, probably recorded on tape. So which tape is "What Maharishi taught?" I'll wait. The *naivete* of believing that one can read *one instance* of teaching on a particular subject and "know" from that "What a teacher taught" astounds to me. Teachers contradict themselves from year to year, sometimes more often. Teachers say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience. What is recorded on Memorex may have been spoken to a large group or to a particular person asking a question. If the latter, is it an answer for everyone in the room and everyone listening to the tape, or just the person who asked the question? The idea that one can learn about a spiritual teacher's teaching by "listening to the tapes" or "reading the books" assumes two things that my experience has shown me are not true. The first is that teachings can be assumed to be static. In reality teachings *change* from time to time and from audience to audience. The second is more important, and has to do with teachings about the nature enlightenment itself. That can *never* be captured in words, so it doesn't matter how many tapes you listen to, you still aren't going to be able to understand enlightenment.
