--- In [email protected], turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], "Susan" <wayback71@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In [email protected], turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In [email protected], "Susan" <wayback71@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I would not be so hard on the folks that bought in to this
> > > > stuff in the TMO. Many had doubts but were afraid to voice
> > > > them. We all have our "stuff" and we were young and devoted
> > > > and I think this was a time when you were with Rama, who
> > > > also had his own peculiar version of bat shit crazy crap.
> > >
> > > Absolutely. I'm just having fun seeing how a few
> > > people react to having their behavior described
> > > the way someone not part of the TM movement might
> > > see and describe it. My guess is that for many of
> > > them it may be a novel experience.
> >
> > Yep - we all became professional grade " modifiers" of what
> > was really going on in the TMO. We got to be to be very
> > very very good at knowing how to explain it all so as not
> > to have people think you were all into something truly weird.
>
> Yup. And I'm certainly not suggesting that the Rama
> trip or other spiritual orgs I've encountered were
> free of this, merely that for them it never quite
> got to the point of absurdity like claiming that
> "when we bounce on our butts we're creating world
> peace."
>
> What I've found interesting since starting this thread
> is that no one -- not even the near-professional apol-
> ogists on this forum -- have attempted *to* create a
> rational explanation for how bouncing on their butts
> creates world peace. Most have just gone the "kill the
> messenger" route and attempted to lash out at the
> person who pointed out (correctly) how absurd it is.
>
> In the Rama trip, about the worst I saw was an attempt
> to say that his frequent attempt to make predictions
> were always correct, the result of correct "seeing" or
> psychic abilities. Me, I didn't buy it, so I started
> writing them down, and then comparing what was predicted
> to how things turned out later. Turns out he was correct
> *at best* 50% of the time, same as if he'd flipped a
> coin. But I'd bet that if you asked most of his former
> students, they'd claim he was "always correct."
>
> Another funny thing around him had to do with his freq-
> uent "misspeaks." For example, he'd mispronounce someone's
> name (turning Jean Michel Jarre into Jarré), or misre-
> membering the name of a movie (turning "Full Metal Jacket"
> into "Heavy Metal Jacket"). The hilarious thing was that
> not only would no one ever correct him, they'd start pro-
> nouncing the name that way and calling the movie by that
> name themselves, as if his version was "better." :-)
>
> People are funny. Having invested heavily in something
> or someone (especially when that emotional and intellec-
> tual investment is accompanied by a heavy financial
> investment), they'll tend to do almost *anything* to
> avoid dealing with the possibility that they might have
> made a mistake, or just been gullible. The only unusual
> aspect of that phenomenon in the TMO is *how long* many
> people have persisted in doing it, and how upset they
> get when someone points it out.
>
I can only add that I think it becomes a lot easier to deify someone once they
have died. With a little selective memory you can change all the craziness to
wisdom and not have any more real life instances to rationalize. But then you
lose the darshan, and that may be the point of it all - the boost in quieting
the mind so you can notice what never changes. I don't know if Lenz had that,
but MMY sure did even in the midst of his very human behavior.
