On 8/15/2014 6:42 AM, Share Long [email protected] [FairfieldLife]
wrote:
turq, I think it's natural for human beings to feel awe and reverence
sometimes.
>
Some people seem to be very impressed with someone who could get up on
stage and demonstrate levitation hundreds of times. Maybe that's why
Barry called his teacher "The Zen Master Rama" - the last incarnation of
Lord Vishnu. He saw God float up slowly off of a sofa and hover for a
few minutes.
/"The person levitating or flying through the air was a guy named
Frederick Lenz, who also called himself Rama. He taught a hodge-podge of
things from different traditions, but the majority of them were
Buddhist. He didn't teach how to do this stuff directly; he just did it.
As far as I know, none of his students ever developed the knack."/
Author: TurquoiseB
Subject: Levitation
Forum. Yahoo FairfieldLife
Date: July 8, 2007
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/143231
>
It might be for a starry sky at night, or a majestic mountain vista, a
piece of rapturous music or a transformative speech such as Martin
Luther King's I Have A Dream.
And some people feel it for another human being and feel it on a
continuing basis. Some people actually experience it as a very
positive feeling. Of course it can slip into something unhealthy, but
again, let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Life itself is awesome, something to be revered. Whatever leads us to
that conclusion is a gift. So let's keep, in a healthy way, that human
capacity to feel awe and reverence, no matter how small it starts.
On Friday, August 15, 2014 3:44 AM, "TurquoiseBee [email protected]
[FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> wrote:
Just as a followup, it is worth pointing out to those who have never
thought about how they treated Maharishi and how they believe TMers
*should* treat Maharishi that this is behavior that was *taught* to them.
There is no inherent tradition with regard to other teachers in
America or the West that we have to treat them as if they were somehow
"special," and "revere" them as if they were near-gods or "better"
than you are. There are no traditions saying that when you greet them
you stand silently in polite lines and then hand them flowers. There
are no traditions that tell you how to react to them when they say
something in a talk or lecture; for most teachers, if you disagree
with what they say, you would naturally ask for clarification, or
actually disagree.
But the way many Westerners treat Eastern spiritual teachers is the
way that they are treated in the East. This is *learned behavior*. As
TMers, the first time you met Maharishi (for those here who actually
did), you were *taught* how to interact with him. Not in words per se,
but *by example*, watching how everyone around you who had been around
for a while was treating him and interacting with him.
You almost never saw anyone express any doubts about anything he said,
because it "just wasn't done." In the rare cases you *did* see anyone
disagree with him, those people were likely excommunicated shortly
thereafter, and you never saw them again -- this is a pretty strong
"lesson" in how one "should" interact with Maharishi and treat him.
And, because all of these "As newbies you should/must treat him and
what he says the way we older students do" lessons were spread out
over years, you never realized that they were, in fact, lessons -- a
form of indoctrination. You learned very quickly the "right" way to
treat Maharishi and think of him, and that it always had to be with
respect and deference, because he was, after all, enlightened and you
weren't.
These quiet, subtle forms of indoctrination were so powerful and so
effective that even now -- decades later and even years after his
death -- many people are afraid to *not* follow the guidelines they
were taught about how one should/must interact with or talk about
Maharishi. And when people who still think this way see someone treat
him like what he really was -- just another human being, not
inherently "higher" or "better" than anyone who has ever lived -- it
makes them uncomfortable and uptight.
I think this is what Steve and others on this forum are expressing. It
makes them *uncomfortable* to see Michael or myself or others treat
Maharishi as if he was "just another guy." Because they were subtly
taught that to treat him that way was "wrong" and a sign of disrespect
-- and, during his lifetime, a "sin" worthy of excommunication -- they
feel that anyone who treats him as if he were just another guy is
doing something "wrong," and they lash out at these heretics.
Free clue -- it's not US who are being weird when we treat Maharishi
no differently than we'd treat anyone else we've ever met or
interacted with. It's YOU, if you still are so indoctrinated that you
feel you have to.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* "TurquoiseBee [email protected] [FairfieldLife]"
<[email protected]>
*To:* "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
*Sent:* Friday, August 15, 2014 8:53 AM
*Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 8/12&13/14-Maharishi: As we take
care of ourself, the world will take of itself for us on that level
*From:* "[email protected] [FairfieldLife]"
<[email protected]>
What I find kind of interesting is to see people here, over time, keep
discounting anything to do with MMY.
I don't mean to single out Barry, but I've seen, (particularly with
that quote Judy found), that MMY's stature has gone from someone
enlightened, in Barry's eyes, to someone with no awakening, but rather
a personality that people just latched onto because they had a cult
mindset.
It's a natural process you might not be familiar with, Steve, because
it's called "growing up." There has NEVER been a time on either a.m.t.
or on FFL in which I said that I believed that Maharishi was
enlightened, because it would not have been true. The only time I
thought that was during the early years when I was as bamboozled by
his act as anyone else. But during my TTC and afterwards, as I got to
work more closely with Maharishi, I realized that I had never once
seen or experienced anything I would categorize as "darshan" or
"shakti" or even "charisma." As far as those qualities go, he had the
charisma of a wet burrito, compared to many teachers I have worked
with since.
When I left the TMO and began to interface with other teachers from
real traditions, I found out what real charisma and personal power
were like, and thus realized how little of them Maharishi had had. I
also got to learn from real spiritual traditions, as opposed to the
ones he had made up and ripped off from Hinduism, just dressed in
Western clothing. In terms of intellect and being able to give truly
"advanced lectures," Maharishi was a spiritual kindergarten-level
teacher at best.
So there is simply no possibility of me considering him "enlightened."
OR of considering him a good teacher. I *did* learn some useful things
from him, and I thank him for those, but not to the point of feeling
the need to put him up on some unrealistic pedestal for having
qualities he never had.
Do you still revere your kindergarten teacher, and place him or her up
on some kind of pedestal of supposed wisdom, the way you might have
"at the time?" Of course you don't. Similarly, I don't consider
Maharishi anything more than one of the first teachers I ever worked
with, back when I was young and naive and easily impressed. I have
grown since then, and can "call a con man a con man" when it is
appropriate.
People -- including yourself, Steve -- DID latch on to Maharishi
because he cultivated in them a cult mindset. Some of us grew up and
got over it, and can in retrospect see him a little more clearly. If
you can't, and get uptight when you hear other people doing so, you'll
have to forgive me if I don't consider that my problem.
It really doesn't make a lot of sense, and as Jim likes to point out,
says a lot more about the person finding fault, that the object of
that person's criticism.
I guess this is a just sayin' observation.
---In [email protected], <awoelflebater@...> wrote :
While reading this I see that this was a golden time for MMY and for
the Movement. There is so much power behind what he says here and
seemingly so much truth. This was a pleasure to read. It reminds me
why I started to meditate back in 1970 and why I attended MIU. What a
pleasure to read!
Jai Guru Dev
To */subscribe/*, send a reply with "subscribe" entered as the
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