Rick’s group of concerned therapist spiritual counselors corrals the perpetration and the teacher/leader perps of spiritually hurtful bad behavior. May be this group in their thoughtful concern could hold their focus and refer or collaborate the communal part of the work to people who mediate communal hurt already. It is real interesting to see the communal re-mediating work being actively done right now on the Shambhala community. Way down in the SAND discussion comes consideration of the effect of poor behavior on “community” offering “Truth and Reconciliation” as a model. Re-developing community seems another whole jurisdiction of work. What has been the experience of mediated work of peace movements, ‘truth and conconcilliation’ processes, ‘non-violent communication’ is extended with the work of ‘restorative justice’. Remediating the perps is one level of the work, the community they work in is a whole nother. Cornering the perps civilly or criminally is its own work, but their effect on their community is another part of the work. NPR posted a link recently to some research demonstrating how a lot of people lack empathy. Rick’s example of the disordered narcissistic spiritual teacher is a good example. I had conversation a while ago with one of the main owners of the ™ movement about the problems, who replied the same kind of response, “what problems?”. Yet, as was said many times in the panel discussion, this cannot hold for very long in contemporary culture with the fluidity and transparency of social media now. An example of process on the Communal Hurt part of the Equation, here is abstracted a process that happened in the trauma of a guru passing away, Engaging Restorative Justice in Reclamation of Community https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/communal-studies-forum/AM9bhYe1dXI https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/communal-studies-forum/AM9bhYe1dXI
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : This ethics work at the SAND conference is a very good distillation to the subject. Locally the atonement part of the work Is something yet to be really applied towards what are the subsets of the meditating community in Fairfield, Iowa “with standards of expectation”, “We’re trying to balance our subjective perspectives with standards that fit our contemporary culture.. Of behavior and abdication of behavior sexually, financially, emotional, ..causing divestment of life savings, causing harm, and dissolution. " "..Revisiting traditions of patriarchy, power play and equality that are being shattered by contemporary culture and being rebuilt in an honest way that is reflective of contemporary culture. ..All too often, when teachers are challenged on their behavior, they ignore the challenger or become defensive.” In Fairfield and the TMO it seems what those that were the meditating movement have 'moved on' with any latent hurt they may have had. Unacknowledged. At a distance now. Maharishi died about 10 years ago. The sex and that money stuff, the biggest building in the world, the 'Brahmasthan of America', happened before that. The Pundits gone now. Figure there were about 6000 TM teachers in the United States in 1975, and what, 360 active TM teachers in the US now. About that many meditating in Fairfield the Domes in recent days and weeks. Those who want to be meditating in the Domes are there, and the larger Fairfield meditating community has reconciled this all as they have in their own ways. A more interesting question becomes what is this collection that is the meditating community including the TM movement going to look like in 5 years? Year 2013? Fairfield, Iowa. Spiritual community. Jai Guru Dev. # ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Of morality.. An exploration of Spiritual Morality in Gurus, spiritual teachers, and their organizations. A session at the SAND Conference... https://batgap.com/panel-discussions-ethics-spiritual-teaching/ https://batgap.com/panel-discussions-ethics-spiritual-teaching/ # A morality, Q: I don’t recall anything about “principles of higher moral character” in the air when we first came here from Amherst. A: Meditation in groups, Maharishi was consistent the whole way about the utility of group meditating influencing a wellbeing of good for others at a distance. This remarkable idea in practice is a simple disruptor to a lot of people’s material paradigm but after so many decades of inquiry in to this observation the science has well borne out the hypothesis. And, Guru Dev too in his spiritual construct on moral order could have easily agreed now given what all we know from the inquiry of science, that people who do not go to group meditations when they could join with them are being amoral in their selfishness. That someone sitting out in a coffee house whether in Leiden watching videos on their laptop or those meditators idle downtown around the Fairfield, iowa town square at Paradiso, the Cider House, the Sushi bar, or in Revelations during the communal group meditation is near to worthless and worse morally in their contribution to the general good and communal welfare, a drag, amoral. So this, the virtue of group meditation is now in the reach of this spiritual but not religious time of science and spirituality that we do live in. Yet, people who would stay home by themselves, be it some Raja hold up somewhere out there by themselves, or an editor working overtime somewhere and may be would meditate later, but also an administration and its defenders with a religious-like adherence to ill-serving guidelines that should keep people away who could otherwise be meditating with the group evidently are all worst than sad but pretty bad morally. Jai Guru Dev. Thread 437705 Re: What did ‘Guru Dev’ say on Spiritual Morality and its Moral Compass https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/437705 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/437705 .< Interesting to see how the principles of higher moral character that were the communal experiment started at Amherst in ‘78 have been eroded and hurt in the administration of it. For outsiders or people from away looking in on the experiment I recommend their reading "Greetings From Utopia Park" and listening to the NPR 'Fresh Air' interview of Claire Hoffman for insight to how it went. I don’t recall anything about “principles of higher moral character” in the air when we first came here from Amherst. Q: I appreciate what you’re doing with the group meditation thing, but I like meditating at home. I usually take a nap first, then just sit up and meditate. Times vary. A: Evidently a lot of people feel this way also about meditating with the TM group, not turning out for what was superradiance of the group. The numbers in the Dome meditation are incredibly low now. #
