I just wanted to tell you, Irmeli, that I find this post of yours very good. I don't agree with everything, but everything is written in a good spirit.
--- In [email protected], "Irmeli Mattsson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I liked this post a lot. It is an honest account of Goodman's personal > path and of his own insights and discriminations. I find Goodman's > relationship to MMY have similar qualities than the TM-teacher I meet > every now and then at lunch. That teacher has done the > re-certification course. All the apparent absurdities in the movement > don't bother him. He is somehow happily beyond them. There is > something very beautiful and innocent in his relationship to MMY. The > absurdities of the movement seem to have had a softening and moulding > effect on his earlier quite rigid beliefs and attachments. I respect > his devotion very much and I consider him to be doing fine. > > To be a `true believer' in this way is a fine and beautiful thing. To > be a TB in a way as to using one's only right belief as a > justification to morally low actions, and abuse and control of others > is an distorted form, but quite common. This form of the TB phenomenon > has mostly been discussed here and this discussion is very important. Here I disagree: I think that TB is mostly used as a label, very often in a macking style to characterize specific people here on the board.As such it as simply an inapropriate label for these people who have shown, in other posts, that they have very well a capacity to differntiate, that is they don't agree with everything MMY does (Like Judy etc) > My main criticism is of Goodman's post is that he tries to make > wrong this kind of discussion. Or at least he claims reasoning in > those lines to be at the same level as the fundamentalist's reasoning, > only from the opposite direction. I disagree. Sometimes > fundamentalism can become wrapped in rigid rationality or > rationalisations and use of science as religion. In those cases his > criticism is appropriate, otherwise not. > > I also disagree with the idea that no one is objective until they are > re-established in the Self. I claim that we cannot even then be fully > objective, to be representing the absolute truth. That is that there is no objectivity? I agree. > The absolute is > beyond the manifest phenomenal world. When the I becomes established > in the transcendental, it becomes very stable and dis-identified with > ideas of oneself, gross or subtle emotions etc. This I has no form, > not even truth as we understand it. > > This kind of I does not so easily identify with subjective states and > therefore it is capable of looking at also internal phenomenon from a > stable and calm position. It is very difficult to hurt this kind of I. Just in case this is an allusion to me: I have never claimed to be beyond I. > Still it also always looks at things from a perspective, maybe from > several perspectives, but never from all the possible and valid > perspectives. > > I agree fully of the importance of surrendering the gross level > calculating intellect as an ultimate guiding light. We cannot evolve > to higher ways of being, or stages of development by relying on our > intellect. Our intellect can create only variations of structures > familiar to us. If we want to evolve we have to surrender and let > ourselves to be guided. But simultaneously our discriminative capacity > and sound judgement are great assets in avoiding pitfalls while > surrendering. Sure. > Otherwise surrendering may insidiously change to > regression. And we start using intellect to find justifications to our > morally low actions. But 'morally low actions' implies judgement, a 'moral' (usually done by society), so its a point, but not absolute. > However the reality is usually more complicated > than this division because often surrender and regression are both > present and we are not capable of discriminating them from each other. Yes, probably. I feel devotion is the emotional apparatus being used by a higher force. > I also personally feel to be strongly guided. Not by any single being > in physical form, present or past, rather by all of them. I have also > surrendered to and am also guided by the transcendental that is > beyond my understanding and intellect. I really appreciate that. Others though may have a more personal guidance, through a personal teacher. And they have reverence to this particular teacher, and are guided by the same transcendental through the medium of this teacher. And thats beautiful, don't you think, *despite* defects the teacher may have in his relative personality. So, IMO, its a matter of weighting, either the defects, or his wisdom, his being the tool of the transcendent. I also liked one point of Michael: Devotion, I mean fully blast devotion, becomes important especially *after* CC/witnessing. It could easily be, that one has witnessing, but no devotion. One may not be identified with the self (small), and yet have no idea of devotion. Or only a sort of vague idea. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! 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