---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote :
I just found a post from Robin that makes what he had in mind explicit (if not, er, perfectly clear). Excerpt: "What I did believe...was that my enlightenment had opened up a truth that was intrinsically relevant to to Western Civilization, and this was all about the drama of *individuation*. I certainly had perfect confidence that Maharishi, eventually, would confer upon me an official status which would enable all those who were devoted to him to be initiated into the reality of what seemed empirically undeniable; namely, that one's life, the providence of one's personal history, was the universe's attempt to create a perfect kind of individuality through the drama that, metaphysically, was contained in the context of one's life--especially in relationship with other human beings. "As vivid and real as this seemed to me while I was in Unity Consciousness--and everyone who participated in this adventure with me became convinced of this truth of the intrinsic meaningfulness of one's life in a very personal sense--and acted out and applied this truth in their own life quite independent of myself--as vivid and real as this was, it now, after coming down from enlightenment, seems unreal to me. "But that is what I was seeking from Maharishi: the official imprimatur which would enable all his initiators/governors to recognize the complementary reality to transcendence: perfect individuation through becoming sensitive to the inherent drama of one's personal life. That life was arranged to make manifest this drama.... "I only wanted the TM initiators to know the secret that seemed to have been uncovered through my enlightenment. The secret of Western Civilization as seen through the Veda in the form of an enlightenment which appeared to confer equal significance to the Self and the self." https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/313720 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/313720 I still don't think "co-opt" is quite the right term, but clearly he felt Maharishi's teaching needed this additional component (at least in the West) that only he, Robin, could supply. Right, I had forgotten some of the details of this whole drama I was involved in for 3.5 years. It was about the personal-ness, the individuation, the West. Robin felt he embodied much of what was best about the personal, the dynamic, the energy of our culture and civilization of the modern western world. He was all about the activity, the realness, taking advantage of the art, the music, the literature as a fully realized human being. But it was deeper than that too. It was combining, perfectly, the East and the West and it had to be deeply felt and deeply personal. I may be mis-remembering and I am sure Robin could correct me as it has been a very long time since I have thought about all of this, but I think I am accurate in most of what I am recalling. And I think this is what was so attractive to many of us; it wasn't just about sitting with eyes closed, it was about evolving, being part of this huge drama of life and of using depth and intimacy as a means to hasten our way toward enlightenment - combining TM with confrontation (demon tracking and annihilation), personal relationships and involving ourself deeply with all the West had to offer. Consequently it was a lot of fun most of the time. It was like Robin was the Western representative of enlightenment and MMY was the Eastern rep. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote : Well, perhaps you didn't see his behavior as co-opting Maharishi's teachings, but giving people advice on how to make TM-Sidhis practice better, certainly is the kind of thing that I would call "co-opting Maharishi's teaching." Notice I didnt' mean that he co-opted Maharishi's teachigns as his own, but that he decided he was competent enough to give advice and that it was appropriate for him to do so. Perhaps "co-opt Maharishi's position AS teacher" is a better way of putting it. I think to some degree you are correct in that he felt he could impart some of the techniques and add his own "spin" to them. He didn't get the siddhis until some of his TM teacher group "followers" taught them to him. At that point we all got his version of them even though must of us had the original siddhis taught to us via the normal channels. I believe his actions in this case were fueled by the sense that he could do no wrong created by his then current state (of enlightenment) coupled with a healthy dose of ego generated by the illusion created by his hallucinatory state. It is by his own admission that he felt his enlightenment to be a delusion, hallucinatory. L. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote : I wrote: Also, Robin had no intention of co-opting Maharishi's teaching, as I've already pointed out here recently (so has Ann, who was with him at MIU), and he did indeed ask for a formal nod from Maharishi as to his enlightenment and the changes he wanted to make to the movement. Maharishi, not surprisingly, refused to give permission, and Robin gave up. Add: "...refused to give permission or endorse his enlightenment...."
