> Just out of interest though, what do you think the term "spiritual" actually
> means?
I haven't seen Doug's answer to this, but thought that the question deserved
*some* response, so here's one from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, discussing that
very question: "What is spirituality?"
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness – Lion's Roar
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| | | | | | | |
| The Four Foundations of Mindfulness – Lion's RoarAccording to the late
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, spirituality means relating with the working basis of
one’s existence, which is one’s state of mind. |
| |
| View on www.lionsroar.com | Preview by Yahoo |
| |
| |
From: salyavin808 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 8:08 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
RE post 416341
It's just a knee jerk reaction, nothing to worry about. I said exactly the same
thing only with the addition of a few qualifying statements. I'm sure that if
anyone from MUM joined up for a chat we'd all be interested to hear what they
have to say, just because we rant occasionally amongst ourselves doesn't mean
we're a bunch of animals. When Fred Travis joined in with TM-Free he got a very
respectful welcome and some serious questions all of which he attempted to
answer - he even agreed with me that the TMO shouldn't try to make money out of
products - yagya, MVVT etc - that it hasn't scientifically verified!
I'd rather you got Nader or Hagelin though, I'll line up some proper physicists
and we'll have a grand old time.
Just out of interest though, what do you think the term "spiritual" actually
means?
It comes from the Latin Spiritus Animus or that which animates us. The idea
being that there is some spark or soul within us that gives us life. It's a
term that seems to have morphed somewhat in recent years though with the
co-opting and mingling of scientific principles with eastern thought whether
it's justified or not. Discussions about whether such an entity exists, how it
might work and what it might do are what interest me most, and whether
Spiritual is a "mere" religious system nowadays rather than the all
encompassing Theory of Everything that it claims to be.
Anyway, it's lucky that Rick just put FFL in that category because it seems to
fit with the TM belief system and that he wasn't seriously expecting us to
limit our conversation to matters of the new age and nothing else.
>From the FFL home page:
"Pretty much any topic is fair game.
"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is
the exact opposite." ~ Bertrand Russell "
I mention all this Doug, because you have a history of accepting and promoting
the dogmatic insistence of the TMO that certain of it's beliefs are in fact
facts and I don't want alternative viewpoints moderated on partisan grounds.
Things should stand or fall on the strength of evidence not devotion.
"The healthy mind challenges its own assumptions." ~ The I Ching
---In [email protected], <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote :
MJ, FFL being categorized withYahoo-groups as a spiritual group one would hope
that people couldcome in here and express their own spiritual experience
without the harassing suppression of threats being made against them. You
seemto have some parochial way in threatening people here by 'slap'.Would
pushing the 'moderate' button over your membership status herebetter provide
safe space for spiritual people to come forward on FFLwith their experiences?
For instance I should think it valuable to also have Robert Schneider or
someone from his office come on here andexpress their feelings in conversation
here, without threat of abuse.Threat exampled within FFL post #416341 as what
evidently was a slurring rant and an invasion of someone's privacy, using FFL
as avehicle.
---In [email protected], <mjackson74@...> wrote :
And let's face it, if I came on like gangbusters here and touted myspiritual
experiences, the mob would tear my descriptions asunder.....ashas been done to
every single person who has come here to reportsuchlike.
I am only aware of Brother Jim aka Dr. Dumbass - who else claimed spiritual
awareness/awakening/enlightenment and received a stout thrashing as a result?
From: Duveyoung <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
I'm thinking over here that having had an "experience" does not validate "as
necessarily true" the thoughts that arise afterwards. We see most folks here
thinking otherwise -- that is: they think that their thoughts MUST be resonant
with the ultimate reality of their recent experience.
To have seen someone levitate doesn't make one's subsequent thoughts about
levitation necessarily true. Even the person who levitates can be expected to
have but a mere abstraction for an explanation that is open to every sort of
nay-saying.
Relativity being such a dynamic, if one knows this, hypocrisy of a deeper
degree is needed to validate one's thoughts and yet invalidate the subsequent
thoughts of others -- others that had differing experiences.
Nabby is a very very sincere poster, for instance, yet we found him being
bonked by those who claim to not personally have such blinkeredness when it is
obvious to all that everyone is blinkered in some IMPORTANT and PROFOUND manner.
Stone, glass house and all that. No one gets to toss the first stone. Or the
second.
I would expect that someone who found fault in others for being a true believer
and "running with it," would be especially careful to underline ones obvious
conflict of interests.
As for me being inside my head and not having had experiences. Harrumph.
While this assertion is not couched in the normal cruel-troll manner of
FFL-past, it does seem to accuse me of being spiritually bereft of the basic
information needed to be clear about spirituality. Only I could know if that's
true -- to assert it as true is to do a one-upman-ship deal. I claim that
this kind of insinuation is AGAINST THE GUIDELINES.
And let's face it, if I came on like gangbusters here and touted my spiritual
experiences, the mob would tear my descriptions asunder.....as has been done to
every single person who has come here to report suchlike.
This is the place where prophets come to not be honored....heh heh.
And, by the way, I have had and continue to have some very profound moments
when all my abstractions align -- with a wonderful congruence -- with my heart
and thought stream. Moment by moment, if I wish to do so, I can suss out from
my flow of consciousness perfect examples of the concepts I hold dear.
Doesn't make me correct, but I sure do have experiences. I'll walk this back:
everyone has great experiences -- even if they've never personally noted such.
Given the human karma of the ego daily dying-into-sleep, being reborn in
dreams, and then coming back to life in the morning, what isn't magical? To
diss others for not describing it "well" or "logically" or "intuitively
acceptably," is at least juvenile and probably an act of aggression.....and
AGAINST THE GUIDELINES.
---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
Edg, because you're so...uh...edgy and all, I suspect you'll take my quickie
response below as if it was intended as some kind of affront, and it really
wasn't. I was just taking advantage of these "revalidated FFL guidelines" vibes
to just be honest.
To expand on this a bit, to be honest I've always gotten the impression from
your writing that your approach to most spiritual topics is intellectual, as
opposed to experiential. When you get into how much you know about Advaita, for
example, my impression is that this is stuff that you "know" -- intellectually
-- about Advaita, but without ever having experienced the states of
consciousness that are being written about. Correct me if I'm wrong about this.
I say this not to take a dig at you but to point out a possible distinction
between the two of us. I haven't just read about and thought about the basic
principle of Tantra -- the peaceful co-existence of complete opposites -- I've
*lived* it. I've spent fourteen years with Rama -- and all the time since --
living it.
Please try to remember who you're talking to here.
I write science articles for a living. I have a strong feel for what science
considers "real" in this world and what it does not.
At the same time, *I cannot deny my own experience*.
While knowing all of this about science, I have personally witnessed many of
the siddhis you have only read about. I have sat in the desert -- or in a
Dennys along a California highway -- and watched someone just gently lift up
off the ground (or the naugahyde Dennys benches) and float in the air for a
while.
The morning after experiencing something like that, if you are a bit of a
cynical scientist like myself, you tend to wake up thinking, "OK, what the fuck
was that?"
I still don't know.
All I know is that I experienced it, in states of mind that were as high and
clear as I have ever experienced in this incarnation, and that were completely
free from the effects of any kinds of drugs, and that for me it all really
fuckin' happened.
I am NOT saying that I know exactly *what* happened. What I'm saying is that
*something* fairly extraordinary happened, and that until someone proves to me
exactly what it was, I'm going to go easy on myself for not getting all anal
about what is "real" and what isn't.
That "real" enough for you, dude? :-)
From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]"
<[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
I have *absolutely no problem* with such seeming contradictions.
If you do, I would suggest that they just might be *your* problems. :-)
From: Duveyoung <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
Barry -- you are on record here being quite against most "magical thinking,"
but here we find you being quite the believer. "That explained quite a few of
my dreams during the period I lived there. :-)" Would this be hypocrisy or
you just playing loose with "what's real?" I ask this in the fullest sincerity
to honor the recently re-validated FFL guidelines.
---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
Excellent.
A few years ago, before we actually moved from Spain to the Netherlands, my odd
extended family and I spent a month living in Amsterdam in a house we'd rented
there. It was a really cool house, with multiple floors and a grand piano and a
great kitchen, but at the same time there was always something "off" about it.
So I asked around the neighborhood and found that it had in previous centuries
been an asylum for crazy women. That explained quite a few of my dreams during
the period I lived there. :-)
From: salyavin808 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:02 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of
London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right
opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive
ballroom.
It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how
amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out
the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to
live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables.
The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus
spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich
won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that
many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve
of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our
draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside.
But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the
house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used
by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including
the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944.
Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified
Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a
war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all?
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