--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > I posted this yesterday morning, but it seems to have disappeared > into the Black Hole Of Yahoo, so here goes again...
Several of my posts yesterday also disappeared. If you're posting on the Web site and don't want to have to reconstruct, make a copy of what you wrote before hitting Send. Pain in the BUTT. > It occurs to me that I should explain to those who have > criticized me on occasion for "derailing" spiritual > conversations on this forum with my irrelevancies about > movies I don't recall anybody ever critizing you for doing this. > that I don't see them as irrelevant. Movies are very > much a part of my spiritual sadhana. > > They were long before I met the Rama guy, but that kinda > cemented things. As students, we used to go en masse to > the movies with him, and then discuss them afterwards. In > the same way that teachers from the Vedic era used > metaphors from that era that their students could identify > with -- cows, milk, cows, and cows -- Rama used the > metaphor of movies in his teachings. He could somehow turn > "The Road Warrior" into a dissertation on Buddhist ethics > and the nobility of sacrifice. "Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies," by Dean Sluyter: "Movie fans and spiritual seekers, unite! In Cinema Nirvana, meditation teacher and award-winning film critic Dean Sluyter illuminates the hidden enlightenment teachings of Casablanca, Jaws, The Graduate, The Godfather, Memento, and ten other classic films, revealing spiritual wisdom in everything from 007's secret weapons to the colors of the Seven Dwarfs' eyes. "So grab your popcorn, sit back, and prepare to have your mind opened. Cinema Nirvana is a funny but wise, practical but wildly entertaining guide to finding enlightenment—one movie at a time." http://www.amazon.com/Cinema-Nirvana-Enlightenment-Lessons-Movies/dp/1400049741/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313930689&sr=1-1 http://tinyurl.com/3bthhoo Read it some years ago. Highly recommended. Many here might find the chapter on "Invasion of the Body-Snatchers" of considerable interest, because in it Sluyter describes his involvement with TM (he bailed around 1985) and has some penetrating things to say about Maharishi. Here's the final paragraph of that chapter: "I still believe that my first impression of [Maharishi] was right, that he was made out of light. We all are, the universe is, but some people, by being *consciously* so, may manifest that luminosity in an extravivid way that can inspire others to find it in themselves. I'm pretty sure he was one such. But how can someone so luminous also be so flawed? Perhaps that's his final lesson to me. The blazing, omniradiant light of enlightenment, unlike physical light, isn't limited to straight lines; it can travel even through twisted vessels like him, like me, like you. Despite our best efforts to make ourselves and our teachers smoothed-out superbeings, pod people without any fingerprints, we're only human." Really good writer. His Web site: http://www.deansluyter.com He also made half a dozen blog posts on Huffington Post back in 2009: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-sluyter
