Yes, a similar split between religionists and spiritual practitioners is in TM between those who hold forth (Bevanites) that Fairfield or the TM movement 'is for those who have faith and belief in Maharishi and everyone else should leave', and then individual practitioners whose spiritual experience with meditation is sufficient and convincing. \ i.e., Rick Archer’s Batgap.com \ Strict TM religionists long represented by Bevan on one side and then individual transcendent meditationists as spiritual practitioners on the other side. The practitioners have tended to have distanced themselves or they have been actively ‘separated’ or ‘disowned’ administratively from the institutions of TM, as TM is led by force of a personality. History is instructive on the nature of this separation between religionists and spiritual people by experience. -JaiGuruYou
S3 writes: Re "Thanks for the excellent quote by Alexander Parker": Yes, thanks for those limpid sentences. Can't imagine The Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury ever coming up with words like that. Jesus said: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." The problems begin when a crowd gathers! Then the worship sinks to the level of the lowest common denominator. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <yifuxero@...> wrote : Thanks for the excellent quote by Alexander Parker. Unfortunately, the middle of the 19th century witnessed a decline in the liberal theology of George Fox; as the Fundamentalist perspective gained ascendance in the UK and the U.S. - for example with John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882) coming to the U.S. and spreading the "Rapture" idea. This brand of Christianity represented a retreat into dogma and strict Biblical interpretation with no latitude whatsoever for interior Gnosis. Let's see what CT (Christianity Today) has to say about George Fox. Offhand, I'd say that they merely tolerate him with great reluctance. The notion of interior "light" or Gnosis is anathema even in the liberal branches of Christianity represented by that Magazine. George Fox http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/denominationalfounders/george-fox.html http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/denominationalfounders/george-fox.html George Fox http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/denominationalfounders/george-fox.html First friend View on www.christianitytoday... http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/denominationalfounders/george-fox.html Preview by Yahoo ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : “… the first that enters into the place of your meeting, be not careless, nor wander up and down either in body or mind, but innocently sit down in some place and turn in thy mind to the Light, and wait upon God simply, as if none were present but the Lord, and here thou art strong. When the next that come in, let them in simplicity and heart sit down and turn to the same Light, and wait in the Spirit, and so all the rest coming in fear of the Lord sit down in pure stillness and silence of all flesh, and wait in the Light. A few that are thus gathered by the arm of the Lord into the unity of the Spirit, this is a sweet and precious meeting in which all are met with the Lord…. Those who are brought to a pure, still waiting on God in the Spirit are come nearer to God than words are… though not a word be spoken to the hearing of the ear. In such a meeting where the presence and power of God is felt, there will be an unwillingness to part asunder, being ready to say in yourselves, it is good to be here, and this is the end of all words and writings, to bring people to the eternal living word.” -1660 -Alexander Parker, Letters of Early Friends, ed. A.R. Barclay (London; Darton and Harvey, 1841), pp. 365-66. Alexander Parker was a close companion of George Fox. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Text from Northern Europe I'd like to track down is an essay that was written from jail in Bern by Inspirationists who were at the risk of a conviction for heresy and a death sentence. The essay was a crafted explanation of their separatist spirituality, written judiciously in defense so as to get themselves out of jail without tripping wires. They got out of jail that time (..and eventually came to America). The inquisitors or magistrates in these circumstances went after what people 'believed' by extracting from them statements of their creeds. Not with an interest in context of people's experience but what did they 'believe', point by point. There being a Church ideological disinterest in people's experience, unless of course the 'experience' could convict the separatist. If once moved on to a religionist's turf of comparing 'creeds', “..what exactly do you believe?”, then it is all over for spirituality and spiritual people. (Same kind of trials of transcendentalists by religionists subsequently coming to America, held by the Puritan colony the ISIS of that day.) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : ..Lot of spiritual people [transcendentalists by other names] fled moving from Europe to America. That can be mapped. Likewise a Lot practicing meditators have skirted around and left the TMO as it became doctrine bound, overtly administrative, and itself more a belief-based (religious?) culture. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Excerpts that I heard presented in papers at a conference sounded very similar to Barclay's Apology and not unlike a defended sort of fear that practicing TM meditators contend with in the TMO's guidelines and administrative inquisitions that are held in Fairfield around being able to stay in or even attend sanctioned group meditations in the Domes. Barclay's Apology http://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/apology/ http://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/apology/ ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Does TM have any European antecedents? These old writings reference other writings coming from around Europe, the lowlands, France and Spain and Austria. Through history these spiritual people would have to take periodic refuge from the religion of the day and so they moved around with their experiences too. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : I was at a conference not long ago where papers were given by scholars who recently have translated old German texts, letters, pamphlets, and tracts of satsang-like spiritual groups that were in Northern Europe. Some of these old texts were of the Community of True Inspiration, from their own long line of mystics going way back who existed in satsanga 'separately' through time while the Roman and Orthodox Churches and then subsequently the institutional Lutheran churches were each doing their religious persecuting thing. In these works of the separatists were overlapping writings from around Europe from spiritual luminaries of different decades and centuries. This is recent scholarly work translating this material by American born and reared scholars raised speaking German within their families. A best of both mother tongues? Their translations make nice reading as these scholars are fluent in both German and English. From this material it is evident that those spiritual folks who surfaced by generation or so as leaders or spokespersons by force of spiritual experience are like more powerfully transforming people we could recognize today like Ammachi, Meera, John Douglas, Janet Sussman, Connie Huebner and such folks. Different than just religionists each have Quietism running through the cultural DNA of their spirituality and teaching. yifuxero writes: Thanks for the followup discussions! I had to google Lollardy to find out more. In that it's associated with Wycliffe and many Lollards were his followers; it appears that relating to the eventual development of Quietism, Wycliffe may have been in some ways a setback. His "Bible" only viewpoint help set many free from the clutches of Catholicism and present day Evangelicals rank him as one of the greatest of all-star predecessors to the antinomianism we see today in say, the Southern Baptists. Unfortunately, there seems to be no strain of Self(Gnosis) revelation in Wycliffe, unlike Fox who in my book was one of the greatest of the Enlightenment pioneers. Hence....segue to modern practitioners of meditation that have inherited the Quietist inspiration. The concept of cultural DNA is fascinating and makes the Provenance question all the more difficult to simplify in something like an unbroken linear tree (as may be found in Shankara's Tradition or among the Patriarchs of Jerusalem Orthodoxy. Such topics no doubt may provide fuel for a host of Phd dissertations, but there's one aspect of transmission such scholars would rather not touch upon due to political or cultural correctness: That is - by way of example - that a. as in the case of individuals such as Fox, direct revelation from some aspect of "God" is possible and may lead to new Movements of great importance. Likewise from the Indian subcontinent there are many examples of great Saints having no particular Guru. b. Similarly, a whole wave of people can incarnate and be ready for an appearance of somebody like MMY; and it would be difficult for anybody to come up with logical antecedents or an explanation even from cultural DNA. Simply put, a. individuals and groups can receive direct experiential revelation through interior means and such pioneers are ready for the new knowledge because they have prepared for it in previous incarnations. This idea would be completely taboo among Ivy League scholars. But imo there would be no other way to explain why MMY came to the West and people were already prepared for it! Why? Because they incarnated to meet up with that particular Sage in space/time....with no antecedents necessary. There were of course antecedents to TM such as Yogananda's Kriya Yoga but that Movement was insufficient to explain the later development of the TM Movement with its many adherents. It's not necessary for us to look for the Teachers of the Buddha, Jesus, Shankara, or Ramana Maharshi. They had direct experiential revelation. (of course, in many cases both aspects can coexist)...external teachers and internal revelation. Thanks again! Lollardy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollardy#/media/File:WycliffeYeamesLollards_01.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollardy#/media/File:WycliffeYeamesLollards_01.jpg Lollardy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollardy#/media/File:WycliffeYeamesLollards_01.jpg Lollardy (Lollardry, Lollardism) was a political and religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century to the English Reformation. It was initially led ... View on en.wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollardy#/media/File:WycliffeYeamesLollards_01.jpg Preview by Yahoo ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Yes, experienced Spirituality and its supporting ideas were much more fluid than we might suppose moving across Europe evidently going way back in time. People and their experiences with spirituality it seems have traveled back and forth across Europe from early times and evidently the separatist communities that facilitated these people and the insight of their practices traded back and forth too through time. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Does TM have any European antecedents? ..we can isolate the Silence/Transcending aspect of TM, and for the sake of discussion, forget the Puja part. Then, TM would definitely be in the Quietist camp, since there's no imposition of any religious images (they may or may not arise spontaneously). The Quietist Movement arose in the Catholic countries: Italy, France, and Spain.. A parallel type of thinking and practice arose through George Fox, but many rudimentary antecedents can be found, for example, some practices of certain Gnostics, Cathars, and Meister Eckhart. ..But all of this is heretical, ..eventually tried for Heresy and died in the Inquisition prison. But thanks to people like George Fox, the Quietist movement lived on under different names. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Many Friends’ ideas can be traced to earlier groups. The first distinct Protestant movement in England was Lollardy, arising in the late Middle Ages, the 1370s. Good survey of earlier 'Antinomian' England: Early Quaker History http://homewoodfriends.org/2015/02/17/early-quaker-history-2/ http://homewoodfriends.org/2015/02/17/early-quaker-history-2/ Early Quaker History http://homewoodfriends.org/2015/02/17/early-quaker-history-2/ This information was originally presented to the meeting for a “Quakerism 101” course by Eva Hersh on 4/13/2003. It was later revised by other members of Ho... View on homewoodfriends.org http://homewoodfriends.org/2015/02/17/early-quaker-history-2/ Preview by Yahoo ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : "The spread of the Antinomian tradition, as begun by the Lollards, was by means of extended kinship, intermarriage, and child rearing and education. As will be seen, the Lollard movement, which continued right up to the English Reformation of the 1530's, was a dissident religious reform campaign that harbored an ingrained Antinomian frame of mind. As such, Lollardy was as much a radical stance from which even more radical views and beliefs evolved over time, as it was a sect with a definitive theology and program of action. It comprised, therefor, many dissident attitudes about the nature of true religion,, the character of a “real” church, and the correct role of the state in relation to it. In short, it was a conveyor of religious and political radicalism. The means of dissident transmission was by families within great kin networks, part of a much broader process of what might be called a “cultural genetics"." ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : But thanks to people like George Fox, the Quietist movement lived on under different names. Yes, Jai George Fox! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : "Kinship, therefore, was a determinant of far more than mere bloodlines: it was a radical cultural transmitter, reflecting persistent defining cultural, religious, and political traits. It continually revealed repetitive familial continuities and ancient customs of significant proportions. Tracing long lines of familial descent show that kinship connections almost invariably portended the descent of radical religious tendencies, and thus of radical political positions. ..Thus, this continuous, repetitive congeries of familial patterns was not only accidental, it was an historically definable and demonstrable phenomenon, a marvel of great historical significance." Renegade Yankees The Antinomian Tradition and Agrarian Resistance in the Colonial American Northeast, 1636-1809 by Donald Alan Smith Miguel de Molinos was the main inspiration. But Madame Guyon - particularly through her book "A Short and Easy Method of Prayer" - helped popularize his approach. Her high-profile supporter was Archbishop Fenelon. All three were targeted by the Church hierarchy. The history of Catholicism would have been radically different if their ideas had been treated with more respect. Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : MD, as one Western transcendental meditationist remarkably you evidently are part of a long line-bred tradition that came out of European separatist spirituality. This dissertation I am reading describes this as like the genetics of cultural familial DNA, a “cultural genetics” passing as cultured from generation to generation. ..In your case the English Lollard antinoniam line to New England affecting radical religion and politics. There were other transcendentalist spiritual lines that migrated directly out of Europe also which affected our American radical (transcendent) spirituality (equality) and political sensibilities (rights) as to the proper role of church and State in our culture. I would nominate you for a Maharishi Award in recognition of you and your family's long relationship with this. -JaiGuruYou! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Good example, MD of how a spiritual movements can spread in a time. Sort of like TM did in the 1950-70's. By shakti of experience and then word of mouth from family and friends. That was the Quaker spiritual movement in its day. Mobility through kin and connection. Someone here in Fairfield with connection to Vermont and New England just handed me a 900 page dissertation that was written on the spread of what the author is calling, 'antinomianism' of various shades. A study of separatist spirituality from European roots moving across New England, jumping and going around what was then the ISIS-like colony of its day, Massachusetts Colony to settle further into New England. A thesis in this work amongst others is that this separatist spirituality (different than religion) moved in its day following kin and business connection often through seaports and then inland. MD writes: My tenth Great Grandfather , Ambrose Dixon, was born in London in 1623. He migrated to James Virginia about 1640. He came over as a ship's carpenter.He was a Quaker, living in a predominately Presbyterian community. He and a few other Quakers felt discriminated against for their faith and petitioned Lord Baltimore to move to Maryland where they were welcomed and granted land. I guess you could say he was *in* on the beginnings of the Quaker Sect and one of the first in the colonies. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Yes, I had wondered this too and chronicled some of it in a subject thread here on FFL. Often those who were referred to as 'separatists' had quietism as a central practice in addition to may be having Ritam Bhara P (inspired) or attending spiritual (chakra) energy work (Pietists). Maharishi's tenet of 'collective meditation' is most similar to George Fox's movement in its day. Today someone like Ammachi or Janet Sussman are good examples of the spiritual practices of 'piety' at work. Connie Huebner in Fairfield is a great example of the old spiritual line of inspirationists (RPB) coming out of Europe that goes way back. They each blend quietism with their spiritual disciplines. It seems that every generation or so another one rises up with their manifest spiritual experience and a satsanga may form. Generations of separatists generated a lot of writing that they passed around between each other in and across Europe. You would proly enjoy scrolling down through these posts on transcendentalist European separatists and their Ashram-like spiritual practice communities: 426393 RE: In Quiet, European ancestral genealogy of transcendentalism https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/426393 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/426393 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/423860 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/423860 # But thanks to people like George Fox, the Quietist movement lived on under different names. # ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <yifux...@yahoo.com> wrote : Does TM have any European antecedents? . The Quietist Movement arose in the Catholic countries: Italy, France, and Spain and is most associated with Miguel de Molinos, 1628 - 1696. A parallel type of thinking and practice arose through George Fox, but many rudimentary antecedents can be found, for example, some practices of certain Gnostics, Cathars, and Meister Eckhart. .The online sources are using the term "contemplation" (Quietism would be an example). The sources use the term "meditation" implying meditation ON various religious images and themes including silent repetition of prayers and vocal prayers, as well as various religious rituals. To clarify TM's place in the 17-th century controversy, we can isolate the Silence/Transcending aspect of TM, and for the same of discussion, forget the Puja part. Then, TM would definitely be in the Quietist camp, since there's no imposition of any religious images (they may or may not arise spontaneously). But all of this is heretical, as Miguel de Molinos found out some time after his Spiritual Guide was published. At first, the Mystical approach of Molinos was accepted among many Catholics, but detractors eventually emerged such as Gottardo Bellhuoma, who in 1678 pointed out that (what he called the Quietism of Molinos), was definitely heretical since it elevated "contemplation" above "meditation (i.e. meditation "on" various religious images along with prayer). . Some key works or phrases in the Quietist movement: self-annihilation (of the ego), self-absorption, withdrawal of the mind, passivity, and continual contemplation on "God" (i.e. the Absolute...not the "God" of the Bible); all leading to what the Quietists called the "Unitive Life" (sound familiar?). At any rate, Molinos was eventually tried for Heresy and died in the Inquisition prison. But thanks to people like George Fox, the Quietist movement lived on under different names.
