--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, doctordumbass@... <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Someone once said that if a person is not serious about a spiritual journey, > better they do not start at all. Several people here seem to have gotten in > over their heads. I'll explain what I mean. > > Almost any skill is learned, by absorbing it, and practicing it, for > proficiency. Fly a plane, drive a car, play music, read a book, become an > architect, etc. The relationship of learner to object changes, only as > knowledge of the object deepens. There is an assumed 'I', in order to make > learning possible. > > The goal of the spiritual journey is to burn down any previous identity, and > transcend completely, in order to make genuine discoveries. Only then do we > begin to see the world as it is, watching its glorious and unending unfolding. > > But, it means confronting deep stories, beliefs, and the emotions, primarily > fear, that drive them. Typically, the journey begins with following somebody, > Buddha, Jesus (vs. Christ), Mohammed, Shiva, etc., within the context of > previous followers; go to a Buddhist temple, read the bible, start a > meditation program. > > Often times, what these followers will do, is substitute the issues of their > life, for the glory and promise they feel as new followers of whatever > vehicle they have chosen for their spiritual journey. In other words, the > previous dream is replaced, or enhanced, by the current dream, the second > dream. > > For many of us, the initial transcending brought about by the TM technique, > seems, and seemed, like a better dream. Get all cozy with Vedic > Knowledge-lite, sit in front of a guru, put on the trappings of the > organization pushing the technique, and dream, dream, dream on. > > Inevitably, if a person continues the spiritual journey, they are faced with > the extinction of the path and the organization that brought them this far. > This will mean they cannot return to the dream that set then on their path, > nor can they continue refuge in a religion or spiritual organization. > > They are on their own. HOLY SHIT! > > Losing one's contextual identity can be a scary thing. Cutting oneself out > like a paper doll, to stand alone, then reducing that to ashes, terrifies > most people more than physical death does. The response for many is to > retreat into the ego, and ideas and theories and beliefs, escaping into yet a > third dream. > > Like Curtis here, on the illusory basis of their ego-bound selves, they are > endlessly questioning and challenging these things they exposed themselves to > during that initial spiritual discovery - Maharishi was this and that, blah, > blah, blah, often simply spouting palaver to salve their foolish ways during > their rush to forget themselves at the feet of some teacher or other. They > earnestly reject the second dream, for the third; that of "earnest confusion". > > Its a good place to be these days, "earnestly confused". People appreciate > and respect this type of false searching, this questioning that never turns > inward, this dream of false discovery. > > It makes us appear genuine and heartfelt to others - a nice guy, a sweet > woman. Sadly it is neither. So, these terrified fools (sorry but calling it > as I see it) retreat into books, theories and thoughts that leave them > hopelessly caught in a vise, between whatever dream they falsely followed, > and their deep terror of complete dissolution. > > However, they have learned enough of their rejected path to have gained some > insight. This makes them appear "wise", and "knowledgeable" and "widely > read". The reality is that they are not a whole lot further along in their > spiritual path as when they started. > > Want to know how to see this type of person? They are tied to their past > formal path of spiritual discovery. Even though they are convinced they have > rejected it, and seen the truth of it for themselves, the confusion around > their previous path follows them around like a shadow. Sensing this shadow, > they are constantly denigrating it, often by attacking those they perceive as > accepting the same spiritual path in a less critical manner. > > This is all the "earnestly confused" have - this one insight that the > spiritual organization they got into bed with, was simply another dream! They > rail at it, and try to wake up others to this fact. They accomplished > something! They saw through the tmo dream! AND IT IS IMPERATIVE that they > convince others of this. > > However, since they are stunted on their way to spiritual freedom, and by > definition, continuing to dream themselves, they have nothing to offer those > who they are trying to wake up; the blinders leading the blind. > > And others smell this on them. These "third dreamers" become like > politicians, telling others the endless errors of their ways, but offering > nothing in return. So, unfortunately, they become lost between attempting to > convert others to their one insight, yet not recognizing that the resistance > they often encounter is not in response to their ideas, but a direct response > to their inauthentic vibes, the "earnest confusion", the silent message they > send of trying to change the beliefs of others purely to make their third > dream of "earnest confusion", a perfect dream for themselves. > > The last person any of us are going to listen to, or take seriously is > someone who goes after any organization, political, economic or spiritual, > and clearly has no self knowledge. It Just Don't Smell Right. >
I like what you say here, Doc. Just to guild your lily a little, I'd say that irreverence is a performance art of disaffected seekers. They indulge in tipping sacred cows hoping people will react in horror. It's rather juvenile but they do it just to show how hip, they are and how hip you're not because they think you haven't rejected the beliefs that they have. Even today, Barry thought it would be fun to post humorously irreverent road signs by MUM to see who smiled and see who didn't smile. I suspect he's more interested in pissing people off than in delighting them. I go for the latter. Funny thing is, after awhile all the TMO, TM and Maharishi bashing, pissing on baby Jesus and exhibitionistic waggling of dicks gets to be so ho-hum that one hardly notices cries for attention fading into the distance. Sadly, when irreverent performance artists, shock jocks, don't get the negative reaction they hoped, they're just as happy to get applause for taking a public dump from people who don't know the difference between art and schlock. Irreverent art is really old school. Back in the day of the Dadaists: "Marcel Duchamp penciled a mustache and goatee on a print of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and inscribed the work "L.H.O.O.Q." Spelled out in French these letters form a risqué pun: Elle a chaud au cul, or "She has hot pants."... Francis Picabia, once tacked a stuffed monkey to a board and called it a portrait of Cézanne... Schoenberg's music was atonal, Mal-larmé's poems scrambled syntax and scattered words across the page and Picasso's Cubism made a hash of human anatomy... But, for all its zaniness, the Dada movement would prove to be one of the most influential in modern art, foreshadowing abstract and conceptual art, performance art, op, pop and installation art." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/dada.html When all is said and done and irreverent spiritual performance artists have met the "Maker of Us All" that they poopoo, generations of unschooled idiots will pay homage to them by scouring the archives of FFLife for instructions on how to be an asshole while tipping sacred cows.
