---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote :
"If you see buddha on the road, kill him". See Barry, you interpret Rama's words in one way, but they could have been something completely different. I believe you miss the point he was making. No matter, your version serves to embellish the view you carry of yourself of some kind of renegade. As for the rest of your treatise, it does become tiring to read it so often. (-: At least you seemed to have read it all. I find, for me, you start in on the first sentence, drag yourself to the second sentence, find yourself nodding off after the first paragraph, skimming down further into the post hoping to all that is holy or not holy that there will be something new or fresh. Finding that this is all just so much recycled rubbish you sigh and stop reading and move on. Chalk up another snoozer from bawee. Different day, same "message". ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Isn't it fascinating the crap that people believe because the person they consider their spiritual teacher said it? Or even if they've only heard fifth-hand that he *might* have said it? I'm back to that moment I mentioned before jokingly -- being able someday to figure out the neurophysiology of That Moment in which the human brain says to itself, "Well, the stuff this teacher has said to me so far seems to be true, therefore I am going to 'suspend disbelief' forever and believe that *everything* he ever says to me again is true as well." THAT would be an interesting phenomenon to quantify. W.r.t. to telling someone stuff about their "past lives," there is an Absolute Requirement that the person 'suspend disbelief' and believe that the teacher *could* possibly know something about this thing he rationally couldn't possibly know anything about. Besides, when it comes to 'past lives,' everyone *wants to believe* that what they're being told is true, as long as the past personage is cool enough. ( That's why you've got so many Newagers who claim to be Cleopatra and so few claiming to be Cleopatra's manicurist. :-) I remember one time when the Fred Lenz - Rama guy did that to me, and I called him on it. We were on one of our "field trips," this time I think i the Louvre in Paris -- no guided tours or anything, just 100 or so Rama students wandering around the galleries, sometimes running into him, sometimes not. So I found myself in this Egyptian room looking down at a glass exhibit that contained a sarcophagus and a well-preserved body. I was quite taken with the bones of this guy's face, and was standing there looking at it when Rama walked up behind me, looked down, and said, "Yep, that was you, all right." Naturally, I was all ego-d out for a second, but then for some reason I caught myself and turned to him and said, "Your're just fucking with me, right?" He seemed shocked for an instant that anyone would actually doubt his Holy Word, but then laughed and said, "Right," and turned to walk away. But then he turned back and said, "You're really the guy over there in that other case across the room," and laughed again. Great moment. *Of course* there was no rational way he could have known who I was in a 'past life.' But that didn't matter to me because for that one instant I *wanted* to be more self-important, and to have been some Pharoah back in Egypt. I mention it because whether Maharishi ever said this about "King" Tony or not, the same dynamics could have been in play. Who wouldn't want to be told that you're the reincarnation of a god? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXnikgHTK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXnikgHTK0 People will believe anything that makes them feel more important. If they've gotten to the point in their self discovery where they gain most of their personal sense of self-worth from the teacher they study with, they'll also believe anything that seems to make that teacher seem more important.
