Curtis, There are similarities between Maharishi's concept of the unified field to the teachings of Jesus about the "kingdom of God". Both are fields that can be experienced personally by all human beings. These teachers taught that this Field is the source of being and of all creation.
I don't believe the Hebrews and the Romans were familiar with this concept 2,000 years ago. To this day, the Jews are expecting the messiah to be a political leader who will establish a physical kingdom that would fulfill the destiny of the ancient kings of Israel, particularly David. The Romans thought Jesus was going to be a Jewish king who would upset the imperial power of Rome. So, they killed him along with common criminals to make a gruesome statement to the Jewish zealots who were revolting against the Roman occupation of Palestine. ---In [email protected], <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : C: What is missing here is an explanation of why anyone should accept that the experiences people have in meditation are in fact an experience of a trans-personal reality. This gap if filled for Maharishi by the use of Mahvakyas and exposure to a specific teaching that convinces a person that this is in fact the reality. Aristotle's presumptive guess of an unmoved mover does not include any possibility for a human to experience it directly by his very definition of it as not having any continued connection to creation. This New Age approach to philosophy mushes the distinctions between philosophical schools of thought. Plato has plenty of time to express this idea that humans could experience an absolute level of life but he never did. He discusses cognitive benefits of knowing the essence of things in the forms but that is a relative level in Maharishi's system even if we choose to miss the point that he was teaching by analogy and it is highly dubious to take it as a literal fact. Aquinas would be horrified at this "experience" of an impersonal aspect of God. This is clear blasphemy and heresy in his Catholicism. Read his Summa and you will not feel that these connections are valid. He was teaching a completely different system of thought than Maharishi and was opposed to Maharishi's conclusions about reality. When I hung out with the Trappist monks who had learned TM I was exposed to how different they viewed meditation. For them the experience of being was nothing more than a quiet staging area for people to develop a personal relationship with God. It had no spiritual value on its own and was considered to be a grave threat to Christians who confused its purpose by getting into Maharishi's Hinduism. The connections between mystical Christianity and Maharishi's teaching are superficial and require ignoring what people actually believe who practice both forms. (This was not directed to you John but to my own TM self who thought I could make such connections back in the day.) ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, Without looking up the specific points made by Aristotle, Plato, and Aquinas, I would say the absolute is the same as Being, which is the prime mover in metaphysical analysis. But this point of view, although logical and intellectual, may not satisfy most people. I prefer to take Maharishi's explanation for Being which can be experienced by your own self or being. You too are existing since you have consciousness.As such, you are just a tiny drop in an ocean of Being. You can experience pure being by transcending thoughts. Pure being is experienced as bliss which is attained when the mind transcends thoughts. In TM, a mantra is used to transcend these thoughts. MMY stated that the bliss is gained at the juncture between the absolute and the relative in our mind. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, I using the word "absolute" as the the unified field, the consciousness beyond the human perceptions. John, you have been keeping this conversation going, especially with Curtis, who seems to be on a roll these past couple of days. This comment you made above got me thinking. Aside from quoting others on this point, if something is beyond human perception, how can you know it exists? If no perception, no information passes into the human nervous system and therefore no information about an 'absolute' could be directly processed by the nervous system, and therefore no direct knowledge of it could exist. This would lend credence to the idea that 'absolute' is imaginary; not real. If we assume others who told us this idea are like us, they too would have no direct knowledge of 'absolute'. And thus they too are simply proffering to us an imaginary concept. I have the opinion there is a way out of this dilemma, but I would like to see what your ideas are on this.
