Just weighing in on the interview, I just watched most of it. Funny how the metaphor for Rick looking so clear in the video and him being fuzzy kind of expressed how I felt a lot of the time.
I am left with the impression that these guys require you to meet them a bit more than half way on the assumptions train. And he is perpetuating the assumptions his own teacher ran on him which he bought into. The big elephant in the room is the question of why we should confer on this guy any more or less of a status of knowing more about reality or truth than we already to in order to place ourselves into the relationship with him as teacher which he is inviting us to assume. Interestingly enough this is precisely the conditions of conferring authority on someone else that oils the wheels for a hypnotic session. Not to say he is hypnotizing his audience in some sideshow obvious way. But his language is the language analyzed in NLP as hypnotic in nature in that it invites the listener to take the rather vague non sensory phrases, and find something in themselves that fits or makes sense. The difference from this and poetry which uses some of the same linguistic patterns is the context that he has a deeper insight from the beginning than you do. And if you are sort of unconfident about your view of reality or are just unhappy with your internal state, this might have more appeal than it had for me. I found little to buy into about what he was talking about since I couldn't find any evidence for his view of reality being an improvement on my own. So I am not a candidate and surely people into this kind of thing would caulk it up to my lack of spiritual sensitivity. Fair enough. One point I found a bit disturbing in his definition of awakening was his lack of integration of known psychological problems like depersonalization and dissociative disorders. I believe it is going to be necessary for this information to be addressed to make some distinctions between these states for them to be taken more seriously by cretins like me. In India they seem to take you at your word that you are divinely inspired because you say you are, and no attempt is made to see if a bit of brain chemical balancing is in order. And I know big Pharm had become trigger happy with these drugs but I personally know success stories of people who got the right dose of the right stuff and are now living much happier functional lives because of them. In any case its omission is glaring. How does he distinguish awakening from pathology? So I guess if you get into the room with him with all the assumptions about him in place, and let him float his river of nonsensory based words over you, it can bring you to a shift in your awareness. And if it is also supported by a whole cluster of beliefs about how the world really is in its nondual glory, you can expand into that as your reality. Been there. I still believe we can do better these days than to assume that this state is an improvement. But then we all are left to make that determination for ourselves. I'm taking the neurology route right now. Until I know all the hardware capacities we have discovered, it is hard for me to take his software instillation at face value. (Hint: it may be all about the temporal lobe.) So I am trying on another version of nondualism which involves a bit of reductionism that labels the mind body split as an illusion, an artifact of how our brain operates. It is pretty much the opposite of the direction of Adyashanti's teaching. But Rick's recording his perspective is still fascinating to me and I applaud your project Rick. You are giving them all a chance to make their case. And for the person who finds it compelling, I know it is a wonderful ride. I got my ticket punched too and am glad I did. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "whynotnow7" <whynotnow7@...> wrote: > > Ha Ha! Yeah, guess so. So why bother assessing teachers and others in terms > of sdomething you have no interest in? Sort of like owning a bicycle and > constantly finding fault with auto mechanics. > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "whynotnow7" <whynotnow7@> wrote: > > > > > > Regardless of Adya's personality, you have made this argument > > > before, that you wouldn't go for enlightenment if it was based > > > on the personalities of Maharishi, or Adya, or some of the > > > posters here. ... > > > > > > It leads me to conclude that you aren't all that interested > > > in liberation. > > > > Seeing as how I've said this explicitly many times, that's > > some real highfalootin' seeing on your part, Jim. :-) > > >
