Dear maskedzebra - I think you are totally spot on with most of your comments. The only thing I disagree is that I am not sincere, I am brutally sincere from time to time and made a few posts which can be labelled as very "sincere". I have explained earlier that I loved your quote "maximum sincerity with maximum irony" - mine's intensive sincerity or playful sardonic sarcasm. But don't believe you will go unchallenged if you make posts on enlightenment being a hallucination, the mystical deceit of Vedic Gods and that MMY/Amma are charlatans. Not sure you saw my post from last night seeking your clarification. I didn't see any response from you so I had to attack you a little bit to get a response from you. I also labelled you as evasive, eccentric and eclectic - I would love to be proven wrong. Here's my reply to you from last night. ------------------Dear MZ - Thank you for this detailed description of your views on "reality" and why you come to the conclusion that your enlightenment was a mystical deceit. Before I make a detailed response I would like your continued indulgence in responding to some of the questions I have. I have had these so-called UC experiences - once for 3 weeks and another much stronger in intensity for 6 weeks, however I'm unable to understand why you have to come to the "conclusion" that you have now and why the experience of "UC" invalidates the concept of a creator. Specifically this quote to start off with " You see, authfriend, the experience that began to take me over on that mountain was the dissolving of my individuality and the classic pantheistic vision of seeing the natural world charged with not, in Hopkins's words, the "grandeur" of God, BUT WITH GOD HIMSELF (or Itself)."
What is the difference between "grandeur" of God and "GOD HIMSELF" that you are referring to here? So I presume in your UC you felt one with GOD HIMSELF, what was this God like? I would love to hear a description of it. And what did you mean by "dissolving of individuality"? I am also more curious in what happened next? Say for the next few years after your UC experience? The reason I ask is during my UC experience I could have used similar words to describe it later - in awe and grace of it. However I most likely would have used the phrase "grandeur" instead of "God himself". I certainly didn't meet God :-(, but I saw the beauty and grandeur of it, I saw the walls of separation I built dissolve, I was overwhelmed by the energy, it was an invasion, a "violent digestion" (thanks Vaj for this phrase) but at no point I would say "my individuality was dissolved". Also I eventually came back to a "normal" consciousness, but after a few weeks I found no longer is my old waking state of consciousness, I felt I was reborn, I was still the same externally, the amount of bliss not same as during the experience, but it is still available on demand. So for me the experience of UC was equally interesting to what has and is happening subsequent to it, the integration, balance it brought to me. So I would appreciate if you could clarify the questions I have on your experiences.------------------------------ --- In [email protected], maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote: > > The test of a person's sincerity is: how do they unconsciously compensate for what they do not and cannot know about why they are existing and why they are the particular who that is existing. > > I see that even Curtis grants you some respect. Although in that BatGap interview with Rick Archer you convinced me of your sincerity with regard to Amma (in her role as your Guru), I have found, in nearly all my interactions with you, that you are provocative, insolent, insincere, and just plain wilful. > > Since in my belief system you cannot be God (the being who knows everything, who has created everything, who directs everything, who is immediately present to the infinite future), you must be categorized, like me, as a created being who is not in possession of all the facts which pertain to your origin, your existence, and your individual form. > > Not to say your special and unique destiny in the universe. > > This, it seems to me, is the problem, Ravi, for no matter what your agenda (excepting, as I say, this account of your experiences with Amma, which seem to me to be innocent and real) SEEMS to be, what I get is someone interested in only one thing: stirring the pot. I TRULY BELIEVE YOU HAVE NEVER ONCE, in any exchange I have read yet, OPENED YOURSELF UP (by your inward posture) TO THE PROPOSITION OF WANTING TO LEARN OR KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL. > > You are not serious in your relations with other human beings, Ravi. You are just dancing, playing, teasing, whirling, feinting, disguising, concealing, eluding, goading, posing. > > YOU WILL NOT AND CANNOT MAKE YOURSELF VULNERABLE TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. Not in any way whatsoever. > > What person who has loved you would testify that my description here does not accord with their experienceI mean in the end? > > Yes, you can take this post as insulting, demeaning, judgmental: but the real question is: AM I WRONG IN MY INTERPRETATION OF YOUR ACTIONS? > > I do not believe I am, because I don't think you are sincerely seeking to get anything from anyone. (Except, I must suppose, from Amma.) > > But your importunate hounding of me with various questions, those questions are merely a game you play. I sense NO DESIRE to have them answered. > > They representall your questions, challenges your way of trying to provoke me into responding, and as soon as I do, you will just keep playing with me. > > Nope. You are a trickster, a provocateur, a crazy gadflybut for what purpose? Perhaps only you know the answer to that, Ravi Yogi. > > Meanwhile I refuse to answer what you put to me, because I would be an idiot to do soand you would consider me secretly inside yourself, to be an idiot too. > > What is the proof of the truth of this judgment of you? > > That you will manifest not the slightest bewilderment, confusion, wonder, perplexity, concern over what I have saidBUT WILL COME BACK WITH A RESPONSE WHICH PERFECTLY DEMONSTRATES THE TRUTH OF WHAT I HAVE TOLD YOU HERE. > > Just watch: Here it comes. > > SEE? I told you. Even though as I write these last few words, I already know and see the future: and that future is a response which reveals that YOU COULD NOT IN THE LEAST BE INFLUENCED, AFFECTED, TOUCHED, SURPRISED BY ANYTHING I HAVE SAID. > > Realize, then, Ravi, that in every word you choose to write in a counter-post you will be exhibiting every one of the characteristics I have identified here in this post. > > Is this your cosmic fate, Ravi? > > I pray it is not. Because of how pointless this makes your life. > > Gauge the sincerity of this letter, then see whether there is any sort of reciprocity of sincerity once you have composed your post. > > There will be none, Ravi. There will be none. > > (And if this post gets me kicked off of FFL, so be it. I will not withdraw my comments for any reason.) > > > > --- In [email protected], "Ravi Yogi" raviyogi@ wrote: > > > > Dear MZ - I'm losing you. > > I asked you for your experiences on becoming clean i.e becoming > > enlightened or going beyond belief but instead I have is how you > > switched from one set of dirty underwear (your beliefs on Vedic > > philosophy/MMY) to another set of dirty underwear (Catholicism/Aquinas). > > > >
