--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > A gal I knew from another spiritual trip had an inter- > esting theory about this stuff. She felt that although > there is a lot of variety among the spiritual seekers > one finds in this world, basically you can pretty > safely "sort" them into two categories. > > The first category is composed of the seekers who are > content with reading about other people's adventures. > They get off on scriptures and tales of other people's > enlightenment, and on intellectual discussions of other > people's experiences, and that's enough for them. > > The second category is composed of mystics, those who > will settle for nothing less than having their *own* > experiences. Reading about them isn't enough; talking > about them isn't enough; coming up with entertaining > (but essentially worthless) models to "explain" the > experiences isn't enough. They want the Real Thing, > and if the spiritual group or teacher they're assoc- > iated with isn't providing it, they move on to some- > thing that does.
Did she realize, do you think, that she was engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle? > I've always tended to agree with her assessment. In > general, the people in the first group say "Maharishi > says" (or "<Fill-in-name-of-teacher-or-historical-saint > here> says") a lot. Because they're not actually *having* > very many spiritual experiences, they assume that no one > else is either Oh, well, perhaps it's just *you* who is indulging in the fallacy of the excluded midde--in this case, that middle being people who say "So-and-so sez..." and are *also* having lots of spiritual experiences. Maybe one a month, even. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/XISQkA/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/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! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
