--- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <rick@...> wrote:
Dear Rick, If my enlightenment was not the real deal, then in all that I say about enlightenment, I will be revealing this discrepancy between my version of Unity Consciousness and the real version. Somehow, if I was not in the same essential state of consciousness that Maharishi was in, someone like yourself would detect this in the absence of that perspective which would give legitimacy and credibility to everything I say about both what enlightenment is, and what it was like to be enlightened. The fact that you are forced to fall back on the a priori assumption that, because you believe enlightenment to be a real state of affairs (I believe it to be a real state of experience with consequent definitive parameters of behaviour and abilities, but for all that not a state of consciousness which is coincident with ultimate reality), and I am repudiating the metaphysical validity of enlightenmentclaiming I am now de-enlightened,it must perforce be the case that my enlightenment was not the real deal. Because, you see, if it had been the real deal, how could I, given your absolute belief in its ontological truthfulness, reject this belief, reject the truth of enlightenment? You must, because I am denouncing the state of enlightenment (and Unity Consciousness) as a form of extraordinary mystical deceit of the mind, conclude that: He was not really enlightened, because his ego is still intact, and besides, anyone who was REALLY enlightened, would not be able to make themselves unenlightened, nor would they dream of rejecting this state of consciousness as being false to reality. Given then your fundamental belief that enlightenment has to be true, you have no other choice but to write as you have written above, because, for you, it is never going to be a question of determining whether or not enlightenment corresponds to reality (whether it indeed is a true state of affairs for a human being and objectively and truthfully represents reality as it really is). For you enlightenment HAS TO BE TRUE. To question its intrinsic validity as a metaphysically bona fide state of human experience and functioning is tantamount to denying what essentially constitutes your highest vision of what life is all about. To deprive you of this belief is the functional equivalent of forcing you to give up your belief in God. For you, then, Rick, enlightenment (the belief in this reality) is as unquestioned and solid and irrefutable as someone else's belief that Christ was God. It is your religion. Why so? Because you cannot conceive, given your experiences and observations and history, of ever bringing it (the idea of enlightenment) before a tribunal of critical judgment wherelike the existence of Godit would be subject to real debate and argument. As to whether indeed it is a natural state of consciousness and functioning for the human person. You MUST therefore conclude that since I am on a mission to debunk your religion, and that I once claimed to have intimate familiarity with that religion (once having been according to my own testimony, the very embodiment of that religion: i.e. in Unity Consciousness), and now have disavowed that religion, that I WAS NEVER THEREFORE A TRUE BELIEVER IN THAT RELIGION. Or rather, never really knew what that religion (enlightenment) was all about. For me, Rick, the question is determined by my experience. I have never met or read about anyone who conclusively demonstrates to me that they are in possessionactual possessionof a more desirable state of consciousness then the one we were born into. Although paradoxically, had I met myself enlightened, in my non-enlightened state, I would certainly have believe in his (my) enlightenment as much as I believed in Maharishi's. My enlightenment was proven to me in ten thousand different waysin every moment of my life when I lived under that state of consciousness. No, for me, Rick, it is you who give yourself away, because you evidently cannot countenance the idea that enlightenment just might be what I say it is. But you are unwilling or unable to subject enlightenment to a true acid test. You have no surefire way of knowing whether enlightenment exists as a true and objectively valid state of consciousness. What is your proof that this state of consciousness exists such that you know it is the perfect representation of what reality is? By your reading of books on the subject? by your interviews with these guests who purportedly have entered into a state of realization? by your experience with Maharishi? Where does this absolute and unshakeable belief originate? I suggest it has been absorbed into your being through your TM and Maharishi experience just like Mother's Milk. It has taken up residence inside of you in a way that utterly forbids any re-examination of it along the lines that I am pursuing in these posts. Sure, Rick, I could be dead wrong; you could be dead right. However THERE IS NO INSPIRATION BEHIND THIS POST which would testify to the fact that in writing to me as you have you are standing in for reality, for the truth of enlightenment. If such a state of affairs exists (I believe it exists) and it is an intrinsic good (I don't believe enlightenment is this) then it seem ironic that, in your forceful defence of its truth claims you are unable to summon up anything other than an abstract argumentthere is no passion, no irresistible logic, no purchase upon reality itself IN THE ACT OF DOING THIS. You are in the same position as the person who, when faced with the atheist's arguments, just resorts to: "Look I know that God exists. Therefore your experience that He does not exist is false." I don't even sense the beauty of your faith in this truth, Rick. It is almost a matter of the quotidian in your life: it is just is commonplace knowledge. I believe in non-enlightenmentor rather in the mystical falseness of enlightenmentwith a conviction that is so comprehensive and clearly reasoned (and empirically inspired) that I feel I am making a transaction with reality in a deeper way than you making a transaction with reality in dismissing my claim to know what the classic form of enlightenment is. The only way you will come to know what enlightenment really is is to participate in a thought experiment: assume IT IS NOT REAL, IT DOES NOT EXIST AS A TRUTHFUL REPRESENTATION OF REALITY. Then examine what it is which makes you assume the dogmatic conviction that enlightenment is a good. Remember: I believe in the existence of enlightenment; it's just that I have found out the hard wayand so did Maharishithat life refuses to have anything to do with supporting it (enlightenment) in any way whatsoever that is consistent with your belief that enlightenment exists, and it is a good. By the way, I think the ego indestructibleand it remains so even in the life of those who think they have gone beyond their ego (those who are enlightened). Like Maharishi: he has an ego, even in his current state of existence. > Rick Archer wrote: Unfortunately, no time for much participation in these wonderful > discussions, but one quick point: > > > > MZ, you seem to be evaluating enlightenment, Indian spirituality, etc., on > the basis of your experience of enlightenment. What makes you think your > experience was the real deal, and bears any similarity to what truly > enlightened people were/are experiencing? I read one of your books 20-30 > years ago, and watched the RC show with fascination from the sidelines, but > I didn't get the sense that you were living enlightenment. It was some sort > of awakening which to you had the flavor of Unity, but your ego was very > much intact, which is not the case with genuine, abiding awakening. IOW, a > very preliminary glimpse, profound as it may have been, but not a standard > by which anyone else's state or tradition could reliably be judged or > evaluated. I say this in friendship. No negativity implied or intended. > > > > One other thing. Don't jump to conclusions. Cultivate what Zen calls "don't > know mind". Very helpful tool. Not only consistency, but certainty, is the > hobgoblin of little minds. >
