---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote : I think that one of the things that contributes to the lack of intellectual rigor on The_Leak is that at least a couple of people there have had experiences that they interpreted as enlightenment.
Yeah, let's talk about enlightenment experiences. LoL! "I've experienced enlightenment many times. In my case, these were fleeting experiences, and they come and go, and furthermore, BFD. These experiences were very real to me, and I am comfortable with talking about them as if they were real." http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg96217.html http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg96217.html Both had been brought up in the Maharishi tradition, and he taught (erroneously, I believe) that when one is enlightened, everything one thinks and every action one performs is "in accord with the laws of nature". Thus people began to believe that "If I am enlightened, everything I think will be true because it HAS to be true." This, of course, is a crock of shit. If anyone needed proof of this, all we have to do is examine the number of times that Maharishi himself was patently wrong in the things he said and the ideas he came up with. But the students grew up being told that when they are enlightened they are "home free," and never have to worry with little things like discrimination and using their brains again, because *whatever* they think, it will by definition be true. When people who have been taught this then have some minor spiritual experiences, they tend to overvalue them and believe that they're major spiritual experiences, and claim to be enlightened. And naturally at that point, believing what they do, they start to believe that *everything they think is true and correct*. They think, "Because I am now enlightened, there is no *possibility* that anything I think can be incorrect or false." Therefore they stop using discrimination at all. They just speak in "pronouncements," and expect people to buy them as Truth the way they bought the things that Maharishi said as Truth. And then it doesn't happen. They say something or write something and someone responds with disbelief. Or worse, laughter. Or these disbelievers actually demand <shudder> proof of what the Person-Who-Thinks-He's-Enlightened claims and assumes is Truth. And they DON'T LIKE IT. They want people to treat them the way they treated Maharishi, by giving him a free pass on *anything* he said. So *naturally* people like this would prefer an environment in which no one ever questions what *anyone* says, and in which no one *ever* uses discrimination and intelligence to assess whether what someone claims is true really is. They want a fantasy environment in which everyone treats whatever *they* say as if it is *by definition* Truth, just because they said it. And in environments like this, minds get lazy. I think what you're perceiving, Xeno, is how far the quality of discussion degenerates in a lazy environment like this, and how quickly. From: "Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> In the past day or so there have been 30 posts to FFL and 8 to the Peak. Since I am on both forums, I redid my email, sorting them into FFL and Peak folders, and one particular poster also on both goes directly to the trash, so these figures here represent everyone else. The intellects here are much more likely to jump on inconsistencies and sloppy thinking here. There have been a few conversations of note on the peak, but mostly it is kind of tepid with a halo of woo fluff. Without a challenge the mind gets soft. Right now there seems to be a conversation about Vernon Katz's new volume. While here I can wonder what percent of my DNA matched that of Australopithecus Afarensis, or whether Buddha would have liked coffee if he had had access to it. Here you can say what you really think. For example, watching Maharishi on tapes some 35 years ago, I was watching him pounding a flower against his face chuckling to himself and I was really thinking, is this guy some kind of saint or a daemon, it was like there was this experience of a dark thread running through that session. I have lately been reading a bit about sociopaths, and it certainly does not seem inconceivable that Maharishi was a sociopath considering the way he dealt with people and because of his incredible focus on getting what he wanted. There are certain features of sociopathy and states developed via meditation that cross over, and 'bad' socipathic traits might get enhanced by practice. From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2015 9:09 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Meet the Ancestor! From: salyavin808 <[email protected]> ---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote : LOL. I was going to make the same comment. :-) I just took my first ever look at the Peak, it's a bit too anodyne for my taste but I totally get why they didn't like hanging around with us! I'm almost embarrassed at having actual opinions about things. At least now you understand the irony I've been pointing out about The_Leak since its inception. People like Ann, Steve (seventhray), and Buck *claim* that they're there on The_Leak because it's higher vibe and they prefer that. But at the same time they make a surprising number of posts *about* FFL. And *in* those posts they make it clear that they still come to FFL and *read every word of every post made by the people they hated while they were here* -- you, me, and Michael. What's up with that, eh? The_Leak is "higher vibe," but they can't get their rocks off without slumming at FFL? Meanwhile, while claiming "28 members," the 107 posts made on The_Leak in the last week were primarily made by 5 people, with another 4 contributing one each. Compare and contrast to contentious and "abyss-mal" Fairfield Life, which during its last full week contained 321 posts, made by 18 people, with another 8 contributing one post each. (And in fact -- and to counter your assertion that they "don't like hanging around with us" -- three of The_Leak members posted more *here* on FFL than they did there.) I stand by my original predictions -- I don't see The_Leak surviving. I see it headed for the same fate as the similarly anodyne BATGAP messages forum, which still nominally has 116 members, but which had ZERO posts last week. Statistics don't lie -- there simply is no lasting market for namby-pamby. What's going to be fascinating is how Jimbo is going to try to spin things when The_Leak fails and he comes back here seeking his attention fix. Now THAT is going to be entertaining. :-)
