From: "[email protected] [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 1:49 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Barry Wright's nar-ci-fan-ta-stun-ted world Well, honestly, I find this rather fascinating, and really, hoping I can learn something from it. This notion that if people are challenged in an unreasonable way it can turn into a "teaching moment" On the other hand, maybe you have a point, and really I am not trying to be duplicitous here, but,.... would it be analogous to say, what the nazis did to prisoners, in terms of experiments like subjecting people to extreme heat, or extreme cold, or other tortureous experiments in the name of research. The results of those "experiments" were useful to science. Honestly, they were. So, is it along those lines? No, enlightenment is basically a mind thing for, presumably, if your head could be kept alive artificially and the body removed, you could still get enlightened because it is a shift in the perception and understanding of the world. Torturing people physically to change their minds, or just because you do not like them, or have been programmed to not like them (same thing), does nothing in this direction. Because enlightenment presumably improves the quality of experience, it is a mental thing. And because enlightenment supposedly increases strength of mind, better understanding etc., due to reducing or eliminating mechanical, conditioned responses to what life throws at us, it is a different situation. A physical challenge can fell even a very strong physically fit person. The ability to deal with a mental challenge is a different animal, a physically weak person might have a superior intellect and repel a challenge with ease, while a strong, physically fit person might be mentally challenged in this regard. Once you have adopted a 'path of enlightenment', you are on the road of de-conditioning those mechanical responses, on the road to a new understanding of life and what it challenges you with. It is not an escape from this, though people often use the spiritual persona as an escape. To newbies, a spiritual master seems in some undefined way invulnerable, and this is attractive, incites the desire to be invulnerable, even though we do not at that time know what this really entails. Once immersed in this sort of world view, it is shall we say, unbecoming to be a complainer about what other people do. So if you want to expound the alleged virtues of enlightenment you have to in some way live those values and be able to explain their relationship to life. You cannot be affronted by how other people challenge you because you consider what you are doing is 'holy'. Being 'holy' is a defensive screen, a religious meme designed to ward off attacks on weak arguments about the nature of reality. Enlightenment is about nothing; there is no argument that can demonstrate it is real, you have to find out for yourself. Now if you experience it yourself and want to talk about it to others, you have to have a certain kind of psychological strength, a sort of non-reactive strength that can brush aside others' coarseness, or even subtle challenges without dismissing them. You cannot be some milquetoast pushover. It does not necessarily mean you will have a pleasant personality. There are stories of very gruff Zen masters for example. The first things that got me to experience 'spiritual' experiences like deep silence was not meditation but an all-out assault on my beliefs. One does not usually know how deeply unsubstantiated beliefs lie at the basis of one's world view, how deeply one is conditioned. The problem I find with the TM movement is it does not make this explicit, it relies on reconditioning you to a new set of ideas without at the same time informing you that these new ideas need to be undermined just as much as the ones you are currently stuck with. The stuff on a spiritual path is a means to an end, it is not the end in itself, it has to be let go at some point. If it is not let go, it becomes a religion, which even M said was the result of loss of knowledge. Ironic that the TM movement is steadily moving in the direction of a religion. I am not sure M ever intended it not to be, but he did say things in the earlier years that were more in line with some other traditions, like Zen, where there is a concerted effort to get a student beyond their verbal belief system. Because of these reasons, being challenged mentally on what you feel is 'reality' I would consider an essential element in freeing oneself from the tyranny of mental conditioning. Some conditioning is going to remain, but being 'sensitive' to taunts about your world view only shows that on the path of enlightenment, you are a failure. Some teachers have expressed this quality in interesting ways. The Catholic priest Anthony de Mello said 'enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable', and J. Krishnamurti said, 'Do you want to know my secret? I don't mind what is happening'. Adyashanti said the following about seeking enlightenment: 'Be forewarned, applying these teachings may be damaging to your beliefs, disorienting to your mind, and distressing to your ego. From the perspective of waking up to reality these are good things to be cultivated. From the perspective of ego they are to be avoided at all costs. The choice is entirely yours'. So being challenged in this way is not such a bad thing. There was a discussion on The Peak awhile back, I think Buck used the term 'spiritual bypassing', which is using your spiritual belief set to avoid uncomfortable challenges. You use your ideas to dismiss an argument from consideration, or to avoid a situation rather than meet it head on, meeting these things outright would demonstrate you know what you are talking about rather than just believe what you are talking about superficially. The ego is a kind of fiction, it is not your real self, so if a person's ego is challenged, it is not their 'true reality' that is being challenged, that 'true reality' is there all the time, it is only their fictitious reality that is being challenged. If you have to defend your position, that is probably your ego talking. To me, when someone responds to such a challenge, it is kind of like the challenge is taking a core sample of their mental geology, shows you what is underneath the surface façade, whether there is solid rock there, or just a lot of gas in a weak and porous substrate. Or I guess, you mean something milder like just misrepresenting someone, (short of legal slander, I presume) just see how they respond? I would think you'd have a better idea of a person's inner quality by engaging in a more civil conversation which often will have its own edginess. Most beings - animals, humans, creatures typically don't respond well to being wronged, or hurt physically. Even animals can be subjected to a sort of misrepresentation. Typically that falls under the category of "cruelty to animals" I guess I just find this statement of yours, which you've repeated often, curious.
---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : The Peak has had a few good conversations, but it is pretty sappy most of the time. When people are challenged, often in an unreasonable way, an unfair way, you get to see their real psychology come forth, and get a better sense of their level of knowledge and how they express it. When everything is nicey nicey, that knowledge stays hidden, so you cannot tell if it is there or not. #yiv0339243762 -- #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;font-family:Arial;margin:10px 0;padding:0 10px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp hr {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp #yiv0339243762hd {color:#628c2a;font-size:85%;font-weight:700;line-height:122%;margin:10px 0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp #yiv0339243762ads {margin-bottom:10px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp .yiv0339243762ad {padding:0 0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp .yiv0339243762ad p {margin:0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mkp .yiv0339243762ad a {color:#0000ff;text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-sponsor #yiv0339243762ygrp-lc {font-family:Arial;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-sponsor #yiv0339243762ygrp-lc #yiv0339243762hd {margin:10px 0px;font-weight:700;font-size:78%;line-height:122%;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-sponsor #yiv0339243762ygrp-lc .yiv0339243762ad {margin-bottom:10px;padding:0 0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762actions {font-family:Verdana;font-size:11px;padding:10px 0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762activity {background-color:#e0ecee;float:left;font-family:Verdana;font-size:10px;padding:10px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762activity span {font-weight:700;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762activity span:first-child {text-transform:uppercase;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762activity span a {color:#5085b6;text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762activity span span {color:#ff7900;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762activity span .yiv0339243762underline {text-decoration:underline;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762attach {clear:both;display:table;font-family:Arial;font-size:12px;padding:10px 0;width:400px;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762attach div a {text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762attach img {border:none;padding-right:5px;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762attach label {display:block;margin-bottom:5px;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762attach label a {text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 blockquote {margin:0 0 0 4px;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762bold {font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;font-weight:700;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762bold a {text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 dd.yiv0339243762last p a {font-family:Verdana;font-weight:700;}#yiv0339243762 dd.yiv0339243762last p span {margin-right:10px;font-family:Verdana;font-weight:700;}#yiv0339243762 dd.yiv0339243762last p span.yiv0339243762yshortcuts {margin-right:0;}#yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762attach-table div div a {text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762attach-table {width:400px;}#yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762file-title a, #yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762file-title a:active, #yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762file-title a:hover, #yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762file-title a:visited {text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762photo-title a, #yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762photo-title a:active, #yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762photo-title a:hover, #yiv0339243762 div.yiv0339243762photo-title a:visited {text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 div#yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg #yiv0339243762ygrp-msg p a span.yiv0339243762yshortcuts {font-family:Verdana;font-size:10px;font-weight:normal;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762green {color:#628c2a;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762MsoNormal {margin:0 0 0 0;}#yiv0339243762 o {font-size:0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762photos div {float:left;width:72px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762photos div div {border:1px solid #666666;height:62px;overflow:hidden;width:62px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762photos div label {color:#666666;font-size:10px;overflow:hidden;text-align:center;white-space:nowrap;width:64px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762reco-category {font-size:77%;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762reco-desc {font-size:77%;}#yiv0339243762 .yiv0339243762replbq {margin:4px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-actbar div a:first-child {margin-right:2px;padding-right:5px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg {font-size:13px;font-family:Arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg table {font-size:inherit;font:100%;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg select, #yiv0339243762 input, #yiv0339243762 textarea {font:99% Arial, Helvetica, clean, sans-serif;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg pre, #yiv0339243762 code {font:115% monospace;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg * {line-height:1.22em;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-mlmsg #yiv0339243762logo {padding-bottom:10px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-msg p a {font-family:Verdana;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-msg p#yiv0339243762attach-count span {color:#1E66AE;font-weight:700;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-reco #yiv0339243762reco-head {color:#ff7900;font-weight:700;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-reco {margin-bottom:20px;padding:0px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-sponsor #yiv0339243762ov li a {font-size:130%;text-decoration:none;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-sponsor #yiv0339243762ov li {font-size:77%;list-style-type:square;padding:6px 0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-sponsor #yiv0339243762ov ul {margin:0;padding:0 0 0 8px;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-text {font-family:Georgia;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-text p {margin:0 0 1em 0;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-text tt {font-size:120%;}#yiv0339243762 #yiv0339243762ygrp-vital ul li:last-child {border-right:none !important;}#yiv0339243762
