*chuckle*
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long <sharelong60@...> wrote:
>
> No body gets out of here alive (-:
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Carol <jchwelch@...>
> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 9:14 AM
> Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Are you in a cult?
>
>
>
> Â
> Enjoyed this piece. For me, it's a light-hearted way to shake me up a little
> and be more aware to endeavor to hear my own heart.
>
> I like the first comment on the blog:
> Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on April 26, 2013 - 1:42pm.
> "and then freedom, or awakening becomes the 'cult' ... we never escape ..."
>
> Ha!
>
> ************
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <rick@> wrote:
> >
> > From: Integral Spiritual Practice
> > [mailto:integralpractice@]
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 12:01 PM
> > To: rick@
> > Subject: Are you in a cult?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear Rick,
> >
> > Are you in a cult?
> >
> > Here's the short answer: "You bet." And, worse, it's most likely an
> > invisible cult!
> >
> > Okay, you're probably not a member of "a new religious movement or other
> > group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre by the
> > larger society".
> >
> > But you're almost certainly a member in good standing of the Public Cult of
> > the World, whose beliefs and practices are bizarre and abnormal by any
> > objective healthy standard. After all, as the Dalai Lama has pointed out, in
> > the Cult of the World you:
> >
> > "...sacrifice your health in order to make money. Then you sacrifice money
> > to recuperate your health. Then you are so anxious about the future that you
> > don't enjoy the present: the result being that you do not live in the
> > present or the future; you live as if you are never going to die, and then
> > you die having never really lived."
> >
> > It's a totally crazy way to live, when you look directly at it! But among us
> > members of the ubiquitous and invisible Cult, it seems the natural order of
> > things, unremarkable and inevitable. The Cult reinforces and conceals a
> > great many other unwritten rules, invisible beliefs and unexamined
> > assumptions too. (One example: the Cult inculcates you day and night with
> > the message that you're a separate individual who must compete to "succeed"
> > and build up a big, impressive ego-domain, or otherwise you're a "failure".)
> >
> > Some of the Cult's beliefs may be crazy (and make you miserable) but as soon
> > as you start questioning them, you're the one who's risking madness. After
> > all, you'd be departing from the Public Cult of the World's "consensus
> > reality" (which is what defines insanity).
> >
> > One of the strictest rules of the Cult is the taboo against acknowledging
> > that the Cult even exists. Thus, every day while you're working hard and
> > focusing intelligently on your priorities, you're also being lulled back
> > into being oblivious to the Cult and its bondage.
> >
> > You're being drawn into what consciousness researcher Charles Tart memorably
> > dubbed "the Consensus Trance". He described it as "a state of partly
> > suspended animation, of stupor, of inability to function at [y]our maximum
> > level... [dominated by] automatic and conditioned patterns of perception,
> > thinking, feeling and behaving..."
> >
> > Is there any escape from the Cult? Sure, but here's the paradox: to leave
> > the Cult you'll have to risk being seen as...joining a cult! The official
> > Public Cult of the World won't provide any support if you want to wake up
> > from the consensus trance. And if you find someone who has in some sense
> > awakened and who offers to help you wake up, or if you band together with
> > others for mutual support in waking up from the trance so you can leave the
> > Cult....now that's when your family might start to ask "Hey, have you joined
> > a cult"?
> >
> > Maddeningly, your family (and critics) will probably be right! Most small
> > groups, however healthy and intelligent their premises might be, readily
> > develop "groupthink" dynamics that can easily become unhealthy, and even
> > dangerously "cultic".
> >
> > And yet without support and teaching, you're just going to be sucked back
> > into the consensus trance and the mediocrity of the Public Cult of the
> > World.
> >
> > What to do?
> >
> > Well, you can recognize that the consensus trance and the "programming" of
> > the Cult is everywhere and that going in and out of trance is a constant,
> > on-going process. As you do, it will become obvious that waking up from the
> > trance needs to happen again and again, in many little moments of choice.
> > This is what I mean by "practice" --- that choice to live deliberately, to
> > embrace a way of life that's fully alive, always evolving, spontaneously
> > in-the-moment, self-aware, humorous and free. (This is the core of the
> > "Integral Spiritual Practice
> > <http://click.e.evolvingwisdom.com/?qs=25c601ea8e0de1d61695affe716d537855c77
> > 379117f20a921a45c29a6b5363e05cb13fd718cfdc9> " I teach.)
> >
> > From this perspective, yes, you're in the big Cult, the one that keeps
> > re-hypnotizing you back into the consensus trance. The point is this: you
> > can "leave the cult" now --- in this very moment. May you do so, and may you
> > keep leaving it, by waking up! Again and again and again --- every day, for
> > the rest of your life.
> >
> > To your practice and awakening and freedom,
> >
> > Terry
> >
> > P.S. If you'd like to comment on this blog you can do so here
> > <http://click.e.evolvingwisdom.com/?qs=25c601ea8e0de1d6d814fa7ddb98dce1b67dc
> > d1b067775bab011d9905329524d43cec6b0fb51020d> .
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > <http://click.e.evolvingwisdom.com/open.aspx?ffcb10-fe9a16757767047574-fdf61
> > 6717462027f7c117777-fea315707364077f75-fecb167076670c79-fe2617727664027a701c
> > 77-ff981675&d=40026>
> >
>
