Robin never intended to not be a part of the organization, actually. He wanted to reform it, not leave it.
And he didn't "want" anything specific after he became enlightened. According to him, his experience was that he no longer had any personal desires. If you read his posts, what Xeno goes on to say matches what he has said of that experience. Don't mistake what he said that I quoted below for a perspective that he adopted personally, even though it's expressed that way now. At the time, it was, in his experience, a perspective that was bestowed upon him, that he had no choice but to adopt--or in Xeno's words, "just another object in the field of experience." Finally, as far as he was concerned, his experience was exactly what Maharishi described in a passage from SBAL that I posted at one point. Don't have time to look it up now. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : Whether or not Robin co-opted Maharishi's teaching is to me not an important point, since every teacher that goes out on their own rather than being part of some organization has co-opted the teachings of those before them and probably added to, and subtracted from them as well. I do not see here in what Robin says that he knew what enlightenment was, but there is a problem in my saying this because the essential value that various traditions ascribe to this idea of enlightenment would seem to be undefined, indescribable because it is beyond the ability of thought to encompass except by the poor use of analogy and metaphor which means one has to 'read between the lines' to grasp what is being talked about, and if you do not know what is being talked about you cannot grasp the significance of the metaphor. This would lead to the conclusion that you cannot actually ever say what enlightenment is. My thought here is Robin wanted to be co-equal with infinity while retaining individuality rather than just be infinity. This is not to say that in 'enlightenment' there is no experience of ego, but that the interpretation of experience is not via the ego in enlightenment, it is just another object in the field of experience. In 'ignorance' the interpretation of experience is via the ego, through the small self. In enlightenment, experience is interpreted as a function of the totality of consciousness, which is not a persons individuality. But as enlightenment is essentially undefined, that probably cannot mean much. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : ---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.
