--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, navashok wrote: > > > Turq wrote: > > About Rama and Maharishi: "They were BOTH scumbags in my > > considered opinion. And they BOTH did some good, for some > > people." > > Exactly! I know some people, other than you, who were > with Rama and respected him much. As far as I can tell, > they meditate wonderfully, you see this when you meditate > together with them, got good insights into spiritual > principles, good recommendations for their professional > life, and even good endorsement of other saints, both > the same from Maharishi and Rama.
They got the "meditate well" thing from Rama. He could absolutely SMOKE in meditation. In contrast, I never felt that Maharishi could meditate worth a damn. That is, after all, the reason he invented a meditation technique that claimed that sitting there with your mind filled with thoughts and daydreams was "correct meditation." Meditating in the same room with Maharishi was (for me) like meditating at home alone; there was almost never any more silence than usual going down. That, in my estimation, is the reason MMY spent so little time *ever* meditating with groups of his students, so that they wouldn't be able to notice that he wasn't very good at it. With Rama it was very different; the silence was so profound that if you were meditating in the same room with him the issue of "having thoughts during meditation" never arose because you *couldn't* have thoughts. *Very* different experience, one that tended to inspire you to develop deeper levels of meditation on your own. *That* was the main reason I stuck around with him for as long as I did. That and the fact that much of what we did, at least in the earlier years, was FUN. When *he* stopped meditating with his students (and IMO for the same reasons as MMY, having by then become addicted to Valium and lost his phwam! as a meditator) and the FUN went away, to be replaced with just standard cult bullshit, I went away, too. > Playing out one Guru against the other, you know only > from hearsay, is just too dumb. Jimbo really *isn't* very smart. He got his buttons pushed and so he did the same thing that Nabby (*also* not very smart) does and thought, "Wow...him saying things I don't like about *my* spiritual teacher really pissed me off and pushed my buttons, so I'll try to do the exact same thing to him." So he read the Wikipedia article on Fred Lenz - Rama and extracted what he thought would be a good zinger from it, and then tried to use it to demonize me, via my previous association with Fred. It's pretty much classic cult behavior, "Kill the messenger." Jim really doesn't have the intelligence to think of anything new and original. My participation in this is simply to point out the mechanics of what Jimbo and his fellow button-pushed TBs are doing. They're trying for a *diversion*, to steer the discussion away from any issues brought up about Maharishi by his critics, and towards dissing the critics themselves. It's pretty pitiful, but hey! that's all they've got. The *most* pitiful aspect of it, which we've seen here quite a few times over the years, is that when the TBs get stuck in a corner in which they cannot possibly deny the criticism (such as Maharishi having slept with his female students), they're reduced to the kinder- garten behavior of shouting, "YEAH, BUT YOUR TEACHER DID IT, TOO. NYAAH NYAAH." *Of course* my teacher (for a time) did it, too. The ISSUE is what that said about both him and Maharishi, not what it says about their students. The cult aspect of all of this is getting your buttons pushed *personally* over something that isn't said about you *at all*. It was said about a teacher you once studied with. Taking that personally enough to get all angry and vindictive about it just indicates to me that the teacher in question must not have been much of one. > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote: > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, obbajeeba wrote: > > > > > > > > Good points, dumbass. > > > > > > Not really. Jimbo's just gotten his OMG-somebody- > > > insulted-Maharishi buttons pushed, and is just > > > lashing out thinking that insulting my former > > > teacher will push mine. It's kinda childish of > > > him, and displays all the intellect of a turnip. :-) > > > > > > For the record, the "rape at gunpoint" he's going > > > on about never happened. The woman who made that > > > claim to the media later rescinded it, and said > > > that she was angry that a one-nighter with Rama > > > turned into only that and not more. > > > > > > Was the guy a total dirtbag to sleep with his > > > female students when there was such a power dif- > > > ferential in place? You betcha. Did he need a gun > > > to do so? No way. > > > > > > Anyway, now we can get back to watching Jimbo > > > melt down and act like a kindergartener throw- > > > ing a tantrum. "MOMMY, MOMMY...he said bad > > > things about my teacher...WAAAA....WAAAA" :-) > > > > > > And the funny thing is that I didn't even say > > > "bad things" about Maharishi. I just treated > > > him the way I think of him, as an ordinary guy > > > with nothing much going for him except having > > > run into the Beatles once, trying to milk that > > > for money up to the end. :-) > > > > Just for fun, because turnip-brain is so button- > > pushed that he's not likely to let up with what > > he thinks is a "zinger," and for those who are > > newbies here and *haven't read the things I've > > said about the Rama guy here before*, here's the > > real "rape" story. > > > > The person who claimed that was an attractive young > > woman named Annie Eastwood, who was actually a friend > > of mine during the short time she was around in the > > Rama trip, so I was "up close and personal" during > > this alleged "rape." Annie was an aspiring actress > > who, like most aspiring actresses in L.A., never got > > anywhere with her aspirations. Having noticed that > > Fred (Rama) had no problems with sleeping with his > > female students, she set her sights on him. > > > > And one night it paid off. She got the phone call > > that was Rama's Narcissistic Personality Disorder > > seduction routine. That is, "Come over to my house > > and we'll have tea and talk about your spiritual > > future." Which was code for, "Come over to my house > > and have sex with me, after which I'll probably > > never do this again." It was a pretty sad routine, > > but women fell for it. Go figure. > > > > Anyway, Annie went over to his Malibu house, he > > showed her around, and in the process showed her > > his gun collection, mounted in a cabinet. Sure > > 'nuff, they had sex, and Annie spent the next two > > weeks telling all the women in the org how wonderful > > and celestial sex with him was, and saying that she > > was now "Rama's new girlfriend." She believed that > > she was going to become Parvati to his Shiva, and > > started acting all hoity-toity with the other women. > > Many of them who had been in the same position > > laughed at her when she did this, and sure enough, > > Rama never called her again. She got the message > > that she was never going to be as special in the > > Rama trip as she'd imagined she'd be, and left. > > > > Months later, when the Cult Awareness Network-fueled > > anti-cult media attacks started in earnest, she took > > her revenge by going to one of the reporters and > > tried to turn having been shown a gun collection > > into "rape at gunpoint." Years later she rescinded > > this completely, and retold the story of her one > > night stand with Rama pretty much the way I've told > > it above. Even vindictive women grow up in time. :-) > > > > That said, was Fred an absolute scumbag to have run > > this routine on women who were in awe of him, and > > thus not in a position to say "No." Absolutely. Did > > he also do stuff like rip people off financially > > and fuck with their lives and their minds? Absolutely. > > > > In other words, Fred Lenz - Rama was in my opinion > > pretty much the *same* as Maharishi. Two guys suffering > > from Narcissistic Personality Disorder who got into > > the spiritual teaching business FAR too early, and > > who got taken out by it. The only real difference > > was that Rama had no *products* to sell like Maharishi > > did, only one-on-one teaching, so Fred's impact on > > large numbers of people was by definition always going > > to remain much smaller than MMY's. > > > > They were BOTH scumbags in my considered opinion. And > > they BOTH did some good, for some people. > > > > The problem with such teachers comes from considering > > them more than what they were, and being unwilling or > > unable to accept the full range of what they were. They > > were both sinners and saints -- IMO ordinary people > > with just the pseudo-charisma of NPD going for them. > > > > Now maybe Jimbo and Nabby can get back to their cultist > > "Kill the messenger" routine without thinking they can > > push my buttons over past spiritual teachers the way > > I've pushed theirs. Some of us, after all, toppled them > > from the pedestals we'd put them up on decades ago. :-) > > >
