--- In [email protected], Mark Landau <m@...> wrote:
>
> On Jul 27, 2011, at 12:16 PM, turquoiseb wrote:
> > 
> > --- In [email protected], Mark Landau <m@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > But she didn't spend nearly as much time with M as with R. 
> > > And, of course, two others who "saw" him fly and disappear. 
> > 
> > You can find thousands of people who saw that.
>  
> And do you hold it was actual seeing of physical events or 
> images he was able to fill people's minds with?

I honestly can't say. I know that I experienced these
things, not just once or twice but on a weekly or monthly
basis for 14 years. So did hundreds of people in the same
room or on desert trips. But as far as I know there were
no video cameras present, so I really don't know whether
they would record what I and others saw. 

> > > Of course we know how he spiraled out of here. 
> > 
> > Sad. The guy had so much potential, and pissed it away.
>  
> Yeah, glad his main squeeze didn't go with him. Ending 
> your life seems to be more prevalent in the tantric Buddhist 
> traditions, though TM has those who sacrificed themselves 
> in that way. 

By now you may have read my followup post. One of the 
reasons I am considered a bit of a heretic by Rama TBs
is that I attribute his suicide not only to hubris but 
to a drug called Valium. As far as I can tell, both from
personal observation and from first-hand accounts from
people who were closer to him than I was, he was pre-
scribed the drug as a muscle relaxant to help him get
over a sports injury. But he seemed to like its effects,
and got heavily addicted. I certainly saw its debilitating
effects in the last years I was around him. Anyway, on the
label of every jar of Valium, in BIG LETTERS, are words 
to the effect of "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP TAKING 
THIS DRUG QUICKLY, BY GOING 'COLD TURKEY.' 
ONE OF THE BIGGEST RISKS IN DOING THIS IS
THE DANGER OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS OR ACTUAL
SUICIDE." So what does Mr. I-can-handle-it do? He tried
to stop taking it overnight, cold turkey. Four days later
he was dead, a suicide. Just sayin'. 

> You probably knew of my friend, I won't mention her name here. 
> Rama used to tell certain groups that she was his best student.

Her initials may have been LL. If so, she is one of the
TB Rama students who would probably cross the street 
rather than encounter me. :-)

> > > And, of course, that's another thing we loved so much about 
> > > being with M, how much and how warmly he and we all laughed 
> > > together.
> > 
> > In the early years. I left when laughter started 
> > to be actually frowned upon.
>  
> laughter stopped in M's presence?  When was that?

Not so much in his presence. It was still permitted to
laugh at his joke and plays on words. But it began to
be frowned upon at TM centers, and at National, where
I worked for the last year or so of my TM period. 



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