vs. form-ism, the battling clearly continues on. From generation to generation it is transcendentalists providing the spiritual commentary and antidote to materialism.
I am seeing this generational attending happen right now here in the Millennial Center, in downtown Detroit. Ammachi is in Detroit having public programs and a several day retreat this week. A lot of spiritual people gathered on retreat. Quite a lot from Fairfield, Iowa here too. Yesterday at the public darshan program you could see quite a large flow of Gen-X coming in with their small kids. It was spectacular to see their diversity in a seeming ‘spiritual but not religious’ demographic. That apparently is in constitution. Yifuxero writes: Thx for posting the article on Lynch. I have the hard copy in front of me. On the ongoing battle between Quietism and Fundamentalist belief systems, the Quietists (historically since the first century CE, Gnosticism) initially lost as long as fundamentalist religions were in power in Europe, and that timespan was from Emperor Constatine into the Age Of Enlightenment when (for example), French patriots literally burned down the Catholic Churches. But such battles continued well into the 20th century for example in Mexico during the 20's, with Catholic Priests persecuted. ....Therefore (at least in the West), and by no means discussing the East, inroads by Quietism had to wait until the grip of Fundamentalism finally began to wane. Unfortunately, Quietism in the US (as exemplified by Emerson and Thoreau) took a heavy beating when the efforts of the Wesley brothers (late 18-th century) panned out with Methodist missionaries spreading their dogma all throughout the country on all levels including the American Indians. Where were the Quietist missionaries? As stated before, the trend toward scientific materialism after Newton also doomed Quietism from the "left" (liberal humanitarianism, coupled with materialism and scientism) This occurred even though Newton himself was a probable Quietist though he kept it a secret lest he offend the Anglican Church. After all, if he wanted to maintain his position as the Chancellor the Exchequer, advertising himself as a "Quietist" wouldn't go over very well! Ironically, by the 20th century, it was science attacking from the left (via Planck and Einstein, then the Quantum pioneers), that facilitated the crumbling of the stranglehold of Evangelical Christianity on the upper crust of American society at least in NY and Chicago. The bottom line in this part of the discussion is that the introduction of Quietism into American culture depended on a strange ally: scientific materialism. How weird! For this and other reasons, I strongly object to the notion that "Spirituality" is defined solely on the basis of the Transcendent and Quietist practices. Also during the 19-th century we have several other unplanned alliesthat assisted in undermining the grip of Fundamentalist theology.. The first would of course be the works of Darwin and others, as well as the social Darwinists such as Spencer who from the UK popularized the notion that constructive changes can occur even without the assistance of the input of theologians. Second, there were other giants of civilization in the 19-th century that although were not Quietists, - a case can be made that the long term success of the Quietist movement depends somewhat on their success: 1. Vanderbilt in railroads, 2. Rockefeller in oil, 3. Carnegie in steel, and JP Morgan in finance and helping to develop the first electrical grid based on the discoveries of Tesla. To make a long story short, by way of example: if there ever will be a Museum of Quietism, these Titans of Industry, as well as the physicists, social engineers, humanitarians, and others laid the groundwork for people like Yogananda and MMY to eventually (after THOUSANDS of years!) to finally converge to a time and place where all of the finest qualities of each type of Movement work hand in hand in a complementary fashion. As another example, even though in 1975 the TM Movement started to dramatically decline in terms of initiations, we can hypothesize that the spark of Creative Intelligence simply moved elsewhere. It moved into IT - first with the necessary inventions (many from WWII and afterwards, then to microprocessors and INTEL, then to Gates and the PC. Last but not least, the Internet and the WWW. If "Spirituality" were confined solely to Transcendentalism, we wouldn't even be having this discussion: no internet, no computers, no electricity, no physics, no microwaves, telephones, airplanes. Just try saying these aspects of civilization aren't "spiritual". Can't be done. Quietism will eventually win the war but probably well after the future Capt. James T. Kirk is born in Iowa and gets into the Starfleet Academy. (25-th century I believe). So, your effects to gather Quietists together will not be in vain. Just wait a few centuries to eventually the Quietist Movement snowball. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Observe though that some lost battles in life are not necessarily the war.. Press on, oh solders! In life! Thy soul, be on thy guard; Ten thousand foes arise; The hosts of sin are pressing hard To draw thee from the skies. Oh watch, and fight and pray; The battle ne’er give o’er; Renew it boldly ev’ry day, And help divine implore. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Yep, fair observations of the dynamics of the evolutionary timeline in spirituality. And then add the practical role of 'collective meditation' within transcendentalism as meditationist practice . This becomes [ "the practical role of 'collective meditation' within transcendentalism as meditationist practice" ] MMY’s great legacy along the line with George Fox. Not only an individual transcendent experience is compelling in transcendental meditationism but now by virtue of MMY’s articulation is the evident body of science of collective practice of meditation compelling. This development of natural sciences correlating with transcendentalism in the postmodern times possibly could drive fanatic religionists and some apostates like we’ve seen here crazy. An irony is the wide-spread taking of transcendent meditationism now into both Protestant and Papel churches via teaching the Centering Prayer program as an ordained / okay meditation practice in a trend reaction to or with the demographic movement of the ‘spiritual but not religious’ movement away from church religion. ..Change happens within. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <yifux...@yahoo.com> wrote : (i.e. the popularity contest between interior experience leading to "transcendence" vs revelation through the Bible based on a Salvation by Grace, through Faith (and obviously dogmatic belief systems). To name a few reasons: Apart from pioneers like George Fox and the 19-th century Transcendentalists, the odds were stacked against the Transcendentalists going way back to the 2nd century leading to the 4-th century when Catholocism was merged with the military and political might of the waning Roman Empire. In addition, looking at the so-called Enlightenment era, we such geniuses as : 1. Francis Bacon, 1561 - 1626 2. Galileo 1564 - 1642 And then we have the most important Transcendentalist, George Fox, 1624 - 1691, but then..... 3. Isaac Newton, 1642 - 1726 4. Ben Franklin, 1706 - 1790 [add Swedenborg too] and keeping score with pure genius power and influence, the Rationalistic trend started by Bacon (he was on the King James commission to translate the Bible)., but is regarded as the founder of what later became the "modern" scientific method) combined with the "star power" of other geniuses like Galileo, Newton, and Franklin; led to the ascendency of the Deist Movement which was largely rationalist, but didn't comprehend pure Transcendentalism., it appears. (if you look at Newton's writings, one can see the influence of his (imo) probable appreciation of Purusha, but he also took pains to cover up any language alluding to anything that might be considered heretical to the Anglican teachings.heretiabsorbtion By the time of people like Emerson and Thoreau., though the writings of these literary giants are clearly expressive of the Transcendent as to language, by the time of the early 19-th century, the roots of modern Evangelical Christianity had already taken place, planted by John Wesley (1723 - 1791), his Brother, and George Whitefield. Due to the influence of the Wesley Brothers and Whitefield (the founders of Methodism), any sparks of Transcendentalism that might have generated a true Movement were completely overshadowed in the 19-th century. What developed into modern Evangelical Christianity can be traced to the early 20-th century . Within a few years, a new revolution in science begun by Planck and Einstein lead to the unfortunate divergence we see today - a complete separation between science as a whole and most of Christianity.; not withstanding the feeble attempt by the Papacy to reconcile scientific discoveries with his version of Christian dogma. To conclude, George Fox and the other few Transcendentalists [Elias Hicks, Thomas Paine too] not in the grip of the Church were simply overpowered by the main trending lines of rationalism, and scientific materialism. Although Galileo, Bacon, and Newton might have been secret Transcendentalists, they preferred not to share their experiences. Either that or they simply failed to believe that one need not adhere to any belief system at all to be a Transcendentalist. At least Spinoza stood up boldly for writing about his experiences with the Transcendent (using his own vocabulary which I've forgotten). As to George Fox.....simply outgunned by some intellectual giants of his era. The growing Methodist Movement in the U.S. resulted in the virtual extinction of the Transcendentalists as a group Movement.. John Wesley - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley#/media/File:John_Wesley_preaching_to_native_American_Indians._Engraving._Wellcome_V0006867.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley#/media/File:John_Wesley_preaching_to_native_American_Indians._Engraving._Wellcome_V0006867.jpg John Wesley - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley#/media/File:John_Wesley_preaching_to_native_American_Indians._Engraving._Wellcome_V0006867.jpg John Wesley (/ˈdʒɒn ˈwɛsli/ or /ˈdʒɒn ˈwɛzli/;[1] 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an Anglican cleric and theologian who, with his brother Charle... 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