I'm going to chop out the specifics in your comments, Vaj, and reply to them as the more generic statements they are. This is *not* a TM-specific issue.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@...> wrote: > > The key trick was "look at me, I'm an enlightened man"... That's the "key trick" in almost all of these kinds of situations. The trick works best on communities of seekers in which no one ever seems to achieve the goal that they espouse. When people have *heard about* enlightenment for many years but never experienced it themselves, and in many cases never seen a living embodiment of it, they become suckers for anyone who breezes into town wearing Narcissistic Personality Disorder-induced charisma, and just *believe* them. If you question them about it, the conversation usually goes like this: Me: So how do you know that this person was enlightened? Them: Why, he (or she) said so, of course. Me: But how do you know that he (she) was telling you the truth? Them: That's easy -- the enlightened never lie. Me: But how do you know this to be true? Them: Both my former teacher and my current one said so. Me: But how do you know that the people saying this knew what they were talking about? Them: Because they were enlightened, silly. < repeat ad nauseum > > ...and based on that faulty information (from my POV) they > preceded. I guess really the issue here is that they were > part of an organisation that placed great emphasis on alleged > "higher" states of consciousness... Without ever showing anyone a legitimate example of them. > In such a case [claiming to be enlightened], the onus falls > on the integrity, honesty and maturity of the guru, as he's > taking responsibility for his students. However, if the person is suffering from NPD and only *thinks* that he or she is enlightened, they don't feel this sense of responsibility. One of the primary symptoms of narcissism is the inability to care for other people or feel responsibility for them; narcissists only pretend to. > ...the problem is, 'what happens when da guru ain't > enlightened?' ;-) Or not even close? The problem, as I see it, is gullibility. Seekers are in many cases so *desperate* for someone to tell them what to do to realize their own enlightenment that they will believe almost anyone who claims to be able to do that. They hear sales pitches like "My method is the fastest method ever devised for realizing enlightenment," and it NEVER EVEN OCCURS TO THEM to ask the obvious question: "Oh yeah? Show me some of your students who have become enlightened as a result of doing what you told them." > Now while it didn't go as badly as say Rev. Jones or > Rajneeshpuram, I'd hope you can see that a similar seed > exists in these very different circumstances. So my hope > would be that we become wiser - and hopefully more > compassionate in action - from seeing these spiritual > pathologies acted out. Then we need not be enablers or > victims any longer, just wiser to the ways of the world. I completely agree with your use of the terms "spiritual pathologies" and "enablers." ... > If it wasn't real, what does that mean if we encounter similar > situations later in life? Are we wiser in response to what we > learned, or do we ignore what we've seen and not act in ways > that are helpful? My experience is that those who respond to narcissistic charisma in one spiritual teacher will do so over and over again, seemingly without learning a damned thing. And along the way they'll vehemently deny that any of their decisions to follow people they no longer consider good teachers were flawed, or that the teachers themselves were flawed. They'll trot out the "enabler language," and say that they "made the right decision at the time," denying vehemently that either they or the teacher in question ever made a Bad Decision. A psychologist friend of mine points out that this is the narcissism speaking; the enablers are simply aping the mindset they saw in the teacher. They picked up the narcissism from them, and now act it out in the same ways they witnessed.
