I saw him on Batgap before seeing him on FFL. He totally put me off. He comes across so extrovert and superficial - no thank you. And then his silly insistence for acknowledging his 'enlightenment'. Even the word 'The_Peak' is a commedy.
The first thing, I look for, in anyone claiming any sort of 'enlightenment' is a sense of detachment. The people I know whom I regard as enlightened, have a strong sense of inner independence and detachment. You can feel it in the air. That is very different from compassion and love, which is the next thing to look for. This is simply missing. Maybe the Bhagavad Gita is after all wrong that there are no signs for enlightenment, or maybe there are no signs for enlightenment, but there are some signs for non-enlightenment. So, all in all I found him shallow, easily upset and rude. I remember Maharishi warning us from 'moody Brahman', I understand today, to be a sort of mixed up realization, not grounded, down-to-earth, and with delusional fantasies. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : I watched the entire video of Jim, as he was making such a fuss on FFL. I found his explanation of his experience rather opaque. I do think he had some sort of intense opening but because his explanations do not have a lot of intellectual resolution, I find them difficult to parse. Basically he says he is in silence 24/7 which could place him in CC territory, but he avoided saying much more so its ambiguous. As we have been discussing, CC is not such a great hot state, and seems rather common now among meditators of various meditation systems. In observing meditators for some four decades, I do not find that people's personalities change that much. I had mini awakenings long ago, but as time has passed found that it is very easy to over-interpret their significance and 'depth'. A really solid awakening pretty much knocks you off the saddle of whatever horse you happen to be riding, and can take years to assimilate what was experienced. Ravi's video was pulled, so I never saw it. I found a blog he has. He seems much more rational there than when he was on FFL, even though I do not agree with his view of things. I guess it is easier to sound rational when people are not calling you on your game. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : Ravi was interviewed on BATGAP?!?! I did not know that. Too bad Rick never got Robin and Andy on tape - then he could'a done a round table interview with all of them and labeled it the 4 Horsemen interview. From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 11:39 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The real nature of transcendence Him and Ravi Chivukula. Virtual supernovas in the celestial panorama of consciousness. From: "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 5:32 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The real nature of transcendence You forget, Jimmie was interviewed on BATGAP - that has to mean he is enlightened, no? From: "anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The real nature of transcendence I have been thinking of going on the peaked, but there is already someone there who writes about experience similar to the way I do, so maybe it would not matter. I doubt you could get on the peaked with out a pseudonym because Jim was so annoyed that you would not recognise his 'enlightened status'. While I think he had some sort of profound experience, I think his ego co-opted it. The other problem with interpreting what Jim's experience was is he is not very articulate in expressing experiences in general, it's like trying to read a license plate on a fuzzy photograph. I notice Alex is over there now, they seem to be discussing various kinds of de-stressing prior to and following awakening, things I have experienced myself. In general the posts over there have a much higher woo factor than ones appearing here, such as this post from Jim: 'Just as we were "magnetically" attracted to Earth, does the same process continue, after we work out our karma here, but on another planet? Just as a for instance, perhaps we continue to have desires that cannot be fulfilled here, on Earth, and then gravitate towards another world where different 'laws of nature' predominate?' 'I am not all that interested in any alternatives to here, for quite awhile, though I am curious about the mechanics of it all, how life continues to evolve.' A good, clean realisation seems to have a zero wow factor, and is of a totally unexpected character. When I was younger I had more spectacular experiences, and while a glimpse of what I would call 'real' came through, they were mostly de-stressing and hallucinatory. Those sort of pie in the sky experiences though, seem like the kind that could be reported on the peaked that would stir up a discussion. Being around like-minded people tends to be more comfortable, but the intellect and sense of what is real also suffers when one is not challenged. Your challenges tend not to be intellectual arguments but more like a stone wall wherein one crashes upon. An absolute rejection of the point of view being expressed, and I think that can be an effective technique for unwinding woo, provided a person is not too stuck in the goo. I find it interesting that the groups on the peaked and here have settled into a less confrontational mode, and I think this has a lot to do with belief. People do not like to have cherished ideas ripped to shreds. It's Winter here, but no snow at the moment. Come Spring, I expect Jehovah's witnesses to come around with their pamphlets. I am typically cordial to them, and attempt to ask odd questions. I am thinking I could be more direct and just ask them why they want me to adopt their mythology. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Especially if the people reporting experience of the placebo feel that they're getting attention or pats on the back for reporting it. For example, the well-documented phenomenon in the Fairfield domes where someone reports a "new" experience, one that hasn't been mentioned before, and by week's end 20 other people are reporting that they've had that experience, too. And I think we all remember the was a certain former FFL member would react every time someone would report a new experience here. Not *only* would he report having had that same experience before, but he'd say that it was something he *used* to have, back a few years, but that he'd outgrown it now. So for him any reported experience became not only an opportunity to claim "Me, too," it became an opportunity to claim "Me, too, back when I was just starting...don't worry, someday you'll get past it, too, and become as evolved as I am," and thus assert his superiority. Presumably he's still doing the same thing on his new group. What I've always wished someone would do is MAKE UP a "new" experience, and then either report it in the domes or post it on The_Leak, and then sit back and watch how long it is until others start "piling on" and claiming to have had the same experience themselves. :-)
