On Jul 12, 2011, at 1:47 PM, turquoiseb wrote: > I think that part of it is that *over time* many people > became "self unaware." That is, they got so completely > immersed in the cult that they became incapable of > seeing themselves the way that someone outside the cult > might see them. There was a kind of homogenized self- > referentiality about always hanging with people who > believed the same things that you did and dressed the > same way that you did and said the same things you did > and...well...you get the point. It's as if people lost > the ability to discriminate between themselves and the > beliefs or people (spiritual teachers) or lifestyles > they had attached themselves to. Criticize one of these > things, and the self-unaware types react as if you > had criticized *them*. > > The fascinating thing is that I don't see this inability > to "see oneself in context" in spiritual seekers who > only "signed on" to their spiritual trip for shorter > periods of time. I think that the rigidity and the loss > of the ability to laugh at oneself and one's spiritual > trip may be something that "accrues" over time -- many > years or decades. > > What about it, you long-timers out there? Don't you > remember being able to make jokes about Maharishi or > TM or ourselves and the silly things we believed and > did in rooms full of other TBs...and have everyone > laugh? I sure do. > > So WTF happened? If you have theories other than my > "stayed too long at the party" theory, I'd love to > hear them.
There's a long distance between TM-style dissociation and Burns "O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us" and his observation "If there is another world, he lives in bliss. If there is none, he made the best of this" - the only thing was, "the next new thing" became the "best of this", and that removed us from "the ever-present now". "If only, if only". Simplicity was never enough.
