[FairfieldLife] No Ground Of All Being [was Re: Help a Saint - Lose]

[wayback71]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "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 enlightenment—claiming 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 where—like the 
> existence of God—it 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 
> possession—actual possession—of 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 ways—in 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 argument—there 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-enlightenment—or rather in the mystical falseness of 
> enlightenment—with 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 way—and so did Maharishi—that 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 indestructible—and 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.
>

MZ- I think you have some interesting things to say. But the way you write is 
so condensed that it obscures your ideas.  It could be that I simply struggle 
to read it and get fatigued. And I wonder if you think in the same style you 
write. It leaves me with a feeling that you are moving fast, and ducking around 
ideas and concepts and I probably should be careful because there is some 
intellectual trick to it all.  I was not in Fairfield years ago when you had 
your whole MMY/TM things going on, so I am missing that piece of the puzzle.  
And maybe you are so  briliiant that you really do clearly know what you are 
saying.  But something makes me uneasy and I can't get a handle on what you 
mean, what you points are.
> 
> 
> 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.
> >
>