--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@...> wrote: > > IMplicit in MMY's theory of 7 states of consciousness is > the fact that there's no end-point to growth, and therefore > there's no such thing as "the" 7th state.
Plus which, as I've always understood it, the whole thing is a continuum anyway. MMY's 7 states (at least from CC on) are benchmarks along a line of continuous development. You can put in as many benchmarks as you want (10,000 on up to infinity if you get off on big numbers and think they make your scheme "better" than one that uses only 7), but the number doesn't change the nature of the continuum. Has nothing to do with "believing in" a particular number of benchmarks, except in terms of believing that number is more useful for your teaching purposes. Barry also writes: > The model most of us have been presented with along > the spiritual path is that SOCs are "achieved" or > "realized," but then you're kinda stuck with them. > You "get to" CC, but you can't then put on the > consciousness of normal waking state if you want to, > say, for teaching purposes. Similarly, if you "get > to" UC, you can't then "backtrack" during a talk on > GC and temporarily "wear" that state of consciousness > in order to model it or demo it for your students. Sure you can. At every point along the continuum, the level you've attained includes every previous level. If you want to communicate successfully, you have to address your students from whatever level they're at, or you won't communicate successfully. > For that matter, even within CC, there's room for growth since there are > plenty of TMers who have been tested in physiological studies who claim to be > having episodes of pure consciousness 24/7 for years and decades at a time, > which is one definition of CC, but none report non-stop transcending during > TM, which is another definition of CC. > > L. > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > [...] > > Please bear in mind that none of these people believed > > in the "seven states of consciousness" as presented by > > Maharishi. I'm using WC, CC, GC and UC here because that > > is how most on this forum think. The teachers I'm talking > > about would consider that model a gross oversimplification. > > Most were Buddhist, and believed more in its "ten thousand > > states of mind" (which is a euphemism for "lots and lots > > of them, possibly an infinite number of them" not a number > > per se).
