--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In [email protected], "whynotnow7" <whynotnow7@> wrote:
> > >
> > > One thing no revolutionary is about to do is conform
> > > wholeheartedly to the status quo, whether in terms of science
> > > or religion. Maharishi would have gotten nowhere fast had he
> > > looked to science to validate his techniques. So like all
> > > visionaries, he spoke the language of his audience as
> > > appropriate, and kept spreading his message. Nothing unusual
> > > about that, nor do I see anything unethical or deceptive
> > > about it. His primary aim was to raise the world's
> > > consciousness. In terms of his expression: "The world is as
> > > you are", he succeeded in spades.
> >
> > The attempt here is to make it appear that his "two
> > teachings" were contradictory, so one of them must have
> > been "insincere." But if that's the case Curtis wants to
> > make, he's got to do a lot better job of it than pointing
> > to this particular statement.
>
> I get this point. I have spent quite a lot of time in the
> past trying to make this case with other examples. But it
> seems like a bit of a fools errand now.
Pursued compulsively by...uh...fools, who seem to
have gotten their buttons pushed because Maharishi
got caught in a contradiction. :-)
The fault is Maharishi's. He consistently presented
his "knowledge" in the form, "This (X) is how the world
looks (and works)." That IMO, having seen a better
way of presenting things, is a lazy approach based on
the narcissistic view (and unfortunately often true
view) that the teacher's followers would just believe
whatever he said, without ever challenging it. What
I have seen in the past from teachers I consider much
better at spriitual teaching than Maharishi is more
along the lines of "This (X) is how the world looks
(and works) from state of consciousness Y and point
of view Z."
Maharishi consistently mixed apples and oranges in
his talks. I consider this a disservice to his students,
especially given his own pronouncement, "Knowledge is
different in different states of consciousness." To
make pronouncements without *naming* the SOC or POV
from which the pronouncement is made is *inviting*
cries of "contradiction," because *by definition* (his
own) viewing the world from different SOCs and POVs
will inevitably result in contradictory views of
"reality." The very fact that anyone can be discussing
these obvious contradictions is the result of Maharishi's
lazy approach to the "knowledge" he was trying to present.
> I have no real idea of his level of sincerity and can only
> speculate like everyone else. The fact that he was deceptive
> on fundamental issues like his own celibacy makes me feel
> confident that he was a master of shenanigans, but I accept
> that YMMV. His interaction with scientists was one of
> "exponent of supreme knowledge" to purveyors of limited
> knowledge. That alone ejects him from a pursuit of knowledge
> I respect. It worked better when I lacked intellectual
> confidence when I was younger. Then I thought his absurd
> overconfidence was cool.
Other than using the word 'narcissism' in place of 'over-
confidence,' I agree with Curtis here. *In addition to*
being a lazy thinker spiritually, one who did not feel
the need to define the SOC or POV from which he was speak-
ing on a given subject, Maharishi had a long history of
Just Not Caring. He co-opted science the same way he co-
opted the Beatles and Merv Griffin, as a marketing
mechanism with which to promote Maharishi's superstitious
ideas about how the world works and sell them (emphasis
on 'sell') to naive Westerners.
> > Curtis seems to believe that because MMY didn't meet *his*
> > scientific standards, MMY therefore had no respect for
> > science and was just doing PR to fool people into thinking
> > he did.
Curtis may seem to believe this because he actually met
the man, sat in rooms with him, and saw how he "did
business" for decades, something that few of the people
debating it with him have done. There is a big difference
between having witnessed a long history of events and
trends first-hand and having seen an occasional video on
an occasional residence course.
Based on similar experience watching him make his pro-
nouncements onstage, I'm fairly convinced that the thought
"Is this true?" never entered his head. The only thing
he thought about was "Will this enable me to sell more
TM (or whatever the product du jour was at that time)?"
Whether he actually believed that selling more TM was
a good thing or a dharmic thing or not is a moot point
IMO.
<snip>
> > His approach was holistic no matter who he was
> > talking to. He'd emphasize either the physical or the
> > metaphysical (although he hated that word) depending on the
> > occasion, but never one to the exclusion of the other, at
> > least that I ever heard, and I've been in both types of
> > audience.
Actually, you have not. You never sat in *any* audience
with Maharishi. I point this out because you consistently
attempt to imply otherwise on this forum, as you do above.
> If you missed the lectures showing his contempt for science
> you might just catch it from his positioning of his subjective
> means of gaining knowledge compared to science.
Bingo. Nothing could be more antithetical to science
that the belief that one can "know" things based solely
on one's own subjective experience.
> And here is my sincere beef with the guy. He played up the
> limitations of the scientific method and claimed that his
> techniques gave us access to not only a new way of feeling
> about our own identity ("I am eternal and will never perish),
> but also claimed that we could have a reliable way to know
> about the way the world actually works from inside our minds
> (which he would claim was deeper than that in consciousness).
Spurious in itself, obviously, but something that many
people on this forum would not question for a moment.
> But he never produced any examples of anything that he or
> any of his followers got from inside that turned out to be
> really important or interesting to the rest of us. In fact
> dreams have so far produced much more fodder for scientific
> exploration than any of the TMer's states of mind.
Absolutely.
> So I have a strong dislike for politicians or gurus who play
> on most people's unfamiliarity of the methods of science as
> a confidence game to make it seem like their speculations
> about how the world works is deeper than that.
Maharishi was to science the same way the George W. Bush
administration was to science. "Practice revisionist
history on science to make it seem as if it 'proves'
the things we already believe."
> I am not anti-speculation in and of itself. It is an important
> part of the creative process.
One of the things that makes this a hard point to get
across to the people you're talking to, Curtis, is that
they honestly don't think Maharishi's pronouncements were
speculation. At a fundamental level they believe that he
was speaking Truth, and if science doesn't agree with
his superstitions, it's science that is wrong. Compare
and contrast to say, the Dalai Lama, who has stated the
exact opposite position.
> But at some point we need to sort out the BS from the
> substantial and Maharishi had no interest in that process
> since it was his speculations that were causing his success
> on all levels.
That and an *incredible* level of naivete on the part of
his followers. They believed shit that *no one sane* would
admit to believing. Some still do. They believed, for
example, that they could learn to fly through the air.
They believed in physical immortality, enough to pony up
tens of thousands of dollars (or more) for his "Immmortality
Course." They believed (and some still believe) that a bunch
of people sitting on slabs of foam thinking words in English
that came verbatim from a $3.95 paperback edition of the
Yoga Sutras could cause world peace and an end to all prob-
lems in life, not only for themselves, but for others. They
believed that entering or exiting a building from the "wrong"
direction could fuck up their lives. You'll have to pardon
me here, but I'm suggesting that anyone who believed in such
things without giving a second thought to the rationality
of them didn't need South-facing entrances to fuck them up. :-)
> Cynically, money and power.
More charitably, an incredibly superstitious Hindu who
would do anything to sell his superstitions to others
as the Highest Truth, as he believed them to be. And
that "anything" meant *anything*. Ethics had no part
in his life, only expediency in achieving his goals.
I personally don't believe that those goals were prim-
arily money and power. I think they were superstitious
and religious goals, and that his driving goal was that
of a religious fanatic, one who saw *no problem* with
cloaking his religion in the garb of "science" if that
would help him to sell the "Truth" of it to others.
> More charitably, more people who believed that he was a unique
> person who knew things we don't, and would accept his priorities
> for our lives and "attention".
That was his whole act from Day One.
> So this point is not a superficial Maharishi bash for me. It
> strikes at the core of what I consider to be an honest inquiry
> into reality and I am no less serious about it than he was.
My honest suspicion, Curtis, is that you are *much* more
serious -- and honest -- about your inquiry into the nature
of reality than Maharishi ever was. You can accept that you
don't "know," or that you can be wrong about things you
assume. He could not. Never. That is why I class him as
a religious fanatic and you as an honest thinker.
