Thank you for your reply. I have a busy day or two ahead, and I want to digest this, but I am not dropping it. Just a few comments in the meantime. While spiritual traditions often 'recommend' specific types of behaviour, enlightenment itself does not prescribe or proscribe any kind of behaviour; whatever the world does is what happens. The conceptual view of the world we have determines much of the reality of what we see in it, how we interpret events, and how we think other people are. These concepts are different for every person, and their reality is not universal, they exist only the world of our mind. Barry's post #51036 was unkind. But that was six years ago. Some loosening up of the darker shades of thought must have occurred in that time, unless evolution of experience has frozen in time for both of you. It's a stress. Stress blocks the ability to appreciate in a simple direct way and appreciation then comes through in a tortured constricted manner. I infer that by analogy because I had a streak like that in me when in my 20s; I am not even sure it is completely gone, but it has been significantly worn away. Life does not have the requirement that you 'like' Barry and vice versa. There are no contradictions on the level of being, only in the mind do they exist; it is the resolution of those contradictions in the wider field of experience that brings us peace, but those contradictions still remain as contradictions in the mind, in logic. Everything one sees in the world, even our mental projections, is authentic, and absolute; lack of tolerance for what is absolute gets one nowhere. This does not mean you cannot change the world or cannot make it a better place, but you have to flow with the world because it is far more vast than anyone's individuality.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > Thanks, Xeno, but I'm not playing, for a couple of reasons. > > > Just for one thing, I don't think it's an accident that > > > you've picked the female side of this long-running dispute > > > to characterize as having a "large emotional component." I > > > decline to cooperate with that perspective. > > > <snip> > > If you think from some kind of feminist perspective I am > > characterising you on the basis of gender differences, > > you should put that aside. > > Let's put it this way, it was a bad way to start. I'm sure > you mean well, but you extend the offense by referring to > it dismissively as "some kind of feminist perspective." > > I'm just not interested in dealing with that, sorry. > > <snip> > > I, newbe on this forum, am not concerned with the past so > > much. I did look up Barry's first post on this forum, and > > I found it hilarious. > > Try post #51036, see if you find that hilarious. It's far > from the only one of its kind. You'll have to forgive me > if I'm highly dubious that a man who enjoyed making that > kind of post in his late 50s is likely to have undergone > much of a change by his mid-60s in the way he thinks. > > <snip> > > > Finally, I have to wonder if you picked the wrong post of > > > mine to use as the basis of your commentary. It was a simple > > > observation about the hypocrisy of Barry's post in light of > > > things he's said previously. I fail to see how that could > > > be construed as anything but analytical, and his post sure > > > didn't involve much in the way of "nuance" in that regard. > > > > Seeing hypocricy is a subtle form of ad hominem. > > Oh, please. It's a criticism. > > > If someone is inconsistent, even deliberately so, to point > > out what they say *now* as opposed to *then* and concluding > > that as a result of that what they say *now* must therefore > > be false is a logical error. > > That wasn't what I concluded. There's no way to tell which > is "true" and which is "false" (I assume you mean which of > the two he believes). The point is that he made a > recommendation of a practice the purported results of which > do not show up in his behavior--to the contrary--and he sees > no problem with that whatsoever; whereas he has repeatedly > made a *huge* deal of TMers not behaving according to some > standard of enlightened perfection and concluding that > therefore TM doesn't work. I seriously doubt he even sees > the contradiction. > > That's one of my major criticism of him. I see him as an > intellectual fraud (and as a phony in most other respects > as well). I have little tolerance for inauthenticity. > > And I think I'll stop there for now. >
