--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [email protected], off_world_beings > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote: > <snip> > > > IMO it is Ok even if Maharishi and the TMO feel that it > > > isn't. > > > > They have their logic. > > I think you need to answer the question I asked several posts back > > about keeping the purity of the teachiing. > > I have to ask myself this question: If there was little > > attempt to keep the purity of the teaching by being careful what > > gets interjected and absorbed in to it, what would happen over time > > to the teaching of the knowledge. I think everyone here should try > > an honest open minded objective attempt to answer this PARTICULAR > > question precisely (and concisely) > > Well, it's deteriorating despite (and also > in many respects because of) the TMO's best > efforts to maintain the purity--not within > the TMO itself, but outside of it. > > Whether you think the purity of the teaching > is important depends on whether you think the > teaching is definitive, of course. > > (I'm referring here to the teaching about the > nature and mechanics of consciousness, not to > any of the subsidiary stuff, politics and > Rajas and so on.) > > > >>> And it's all so unnecessary. And so based on fear.>>>> > > > > I think it's based on logic. see above. > > Seems to me the intense, emotional resistance > to the measures for preserving the purity of > the teaching may itself be based on fear, the > fear of committing oneself (not to the TMO > per se but to the teaching). > > It's one thing to disapprove of the various > excesses of the movement control freaks that > go way beyond the logic of it; it's quite > another to tie oneself into knots about it > and start comparing it to the Inquisition > and similar outrages. That's just not a > rational response.
******** Interesting discussion. Yes, the "purity of the teaching" is a technical challenge that flies in the face of time and entropy. Just keep rolling that boulder up the mountain. I agree that it's foolish to tie onself into knots over the excesses of the movement. On the other hand, it doesn't seem so outrageous to compare them to the Inquisition. While many of the excesses that have been observed here are in fact excesses of individual zeal, there is also a pattern of institutional excesses. That is, certain repeated abuses (a judgement call admitted in that word) could only have been a matter of policy. For example, the spying. Also disturbing, the reliance on anonymous informants. It is difficult for a rational and reasonable person to encompass irrationality in his/her thought patterns. Therefore it is frequently found that people simply can't imagine the depths to which the movement has sunk in varioius periods. Nevertheless, I think that the greatest source of outrage against movement excesses is the pain of waking from a murky slumber, induced by a sleeping potion heavily laced with denial. In my own case, for example, there were certain assumptions about the nature of the organization that I clung to far beyond any evidence for their usefulness. I would guess that the broadest general category of such misimpressions has to do with the cult nature of the TMO. To deny that it is a cult is to place oneself outside the domain of mainstream rationality. Once it is acknowledged to be a cult, however, it can be allowed that some of its policies may in fact be reasonable, given that context. However, almost no assertion of irrationality can be dismissed out of hand. It must be considered on the basis of the evidence. This is often difficult to do from a distance. To live in Fairfield, however, is to have access to a great number of disturbing reports which would normally not circulate outside of Jefferson County. Some of them turn out to be false and unfounded, but on the whole they paint a picture that resembles a giant version of those plastic tokens that look like one thing when looked at one way, and something entirely different when looked at from a different angle. Personally, I feel that the "purity of the teaching" as I have understood it has already been lost. There is very little there left preserving, and that which is worthy of preserving can best be saved outside the context of the organization. L B S 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/
