--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Gimbel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It really baffles me, how some people could question whether > he is enlightened or not; can't relate to this notion at all.
As you say, Robert, it's a matter of experience. Yours convinces you to consider him enlightened; mine convinces me to not consider him enlightened. As for *why* I don't personally believe that Maharishi is enlightened, I'll be happy to explain it, although it'll be a little long, and I can promise you that it won't do you any good or affect what you believe one way or another. My reasons are based on my subjective experience, and are therefore irrelevant to anyone else's subjective experience. First, I do not believe that it is possible to ever know for sure whether *anyone* is enlightened. I don't believe that there will ever be a "scientific" test to verify the realization of enlightenment, and there certainly are none available right now. So we, as seekers, are left with *only* our own subjective perceptions. That suits me just fine; I'm comfortable with never knowing for sure. I don't know for sure whether *any* of the many teachers I've met and worked with in my life were enlightened, and I never will. However, there are two criteria -- both subjective, both experiential -- that I use to determine whether I think someone *might* have realized their enlighten- ment, at least at the moment I interact with them. The first criterion is the strongest, in my opinion. Just meditate with them. In my experience, if the person you are meditating with is really going into clear, several-minutes-long periods of samadhi (an ability that seems to be part of almost every trad- ition I know of), that experience is unmistakable. If you're sitting in the same room with the person as they meditate and slip into samadhi, within say 100 feet of the teacher, it is almost *impossible* to have a thought in your *own* meditation. If the teacher's period of thoughtless samadhi lasts for twenty minutes to an hour, then *your* period of thoughtless samadhi lasts for twenty minutes to an hour, with not a single thought or perception popping into your mind. Suffice it to say that this was never my experience meditating with Maharishi, not once in 14 years, whereas it was my consistent experience of meditating with several other teachers. The second criterion has to do with something Jim has spoken about here on FFL, and has gotten a lot of very nasty flack for. It's the issue of "recognition." Basically (and pardon me Jim if I paraphrase), it's the notion that while you personally are experiencing periods of awakening (which I define as consisting of periods of total mental clarity along with 24/7 "witnessing" -- the equally clear experience of trans- cendental consciousness, or in TM-ese, TC), you can recognize others who are having that same experience. I agree with Jim that this is a real phenomenon, limited only by the "rule" that both parties have to be having that realization experience at the same time. My first experience with this was in Fiuggi, on the last "leg" of my teacher training. For whatever reason, several people I knew there -- about a dozen -- began experiencing 24/7 witnessing. The first person that this happened to, after about a week of the experiences continuing for her 24/7, every day, went to the course leaders and told them about what was happening. She was sent home from the course. Immediately, the next day. They sent someone to her room to pack all her things, and didn't allow her to say goodbye to anyone. The other folks who were having similar experiences, by now three or four of them, weren't stupid and learned from this event, and kept their experiences to themselves, discussing them only with close friends. I happened to be one of those close friends. I found it all quite interesting, but nothing like what they were experiencing was going on for me and I honestly didn't expect it to, so I didn't pay much attention to it all. And then one day one of my meditations went on for longer than I had planned -- about four hours longer, without my intending it to -- and when it finally ended, the experience of strong, clear, thoughtless transcendence did not. I got up and dressed and went to dinner and it still didn't go away. It didn't end that night during sleep, and it didn't go away for a couple of weeks. It was *during* that couple of weeks that the experience Jim talked about became apparent. I would meet someone I didn't know, someone who was having the same exper- iences (but without me knowing that) and look into their eyes, and both of us would smile or laugh. It was instant- aneous, unquestionable *recognition*, without either of us saying a word. It was like Self meeting Self, unmistakable. When this happened, we'd often follow up on the recognition with some quiet discussion (away from the ears of the course leaders, of course) about when it started for each of us, whether the experience "came and went" or seemed to be there all the time, etc. It was a really fun time. Anyway, how this relates to my criteria for who *might* be enlightened and why I am not convinced that Maharishi is enlightened is that *during* this two-week period of clear, 24/7 witnessing, I got an advanced technique, from Maharishi himself. I waited in line and then went up and sat at his feet and he taught me the technique, and then as fate would have it he talked to me for a few minutes about an interaction we'd had years before in Squaw Valley. So I sat there for almost five minutes, a foot away from him, looking directly into his eyes. No recognition. None. Nada. Nichevo. Rien. Bupkus. I left the room, walked back to my pension, and interacted with a few of the people who were having the 24/7 witnes- sing experiences. In every case, instant recognition, Self meeting Self. I asked them what their experience had been when *they* sat at Maharishi's feet and looked directly into his eyes and they all reported the exact same thing. No recognition whatsoever. None. Nada. Nichevo. Rien. Bupkus. No Self meeting Self. Does this "prove" to me that Maharishi wasn't enlightened, at least at that moment? No, of course not. It's just my perception. But I consider it a pretty strong hint. :-) >From that moment on I *never* considered him enlightened, no more than I considered myself enlightened as my own experiences started to fade. That didn't interfere with me being a TM teacher, and with teaching something that I felt at the time was valuable, but it *did* serve to keep me a little more grounded than many of my fellow teachers, who were convinced that Maharishi was enlight- ened with the same degree of certainty with which they believed the sun would come up every morning. Anyway, since you asked, that's the story. I'm sure that some people will jump all over it and try to nitpick and come up with reasons why they shouldn't believe it (even though I'm not asking them to :-), and why they should continue hanging on to their belief that he *is* enlight- ened (even though I'm not asking them to do that. :-) Cool. Whatever floats your boat. I'm not trying to change what you believe, merely to explain what I believe, and why. Me, I don't know for sure. My experiences during my time with the TM movement and afterwards suggest to me that Maharishi was telling the *truth* by never claiming to be enlightened. I have no problem with this position. It would seem that those who claim that he is something he never claimed to be *do* have a problem with his position. They are, after all, claiming something for him that he has never claimed for himself. But that's fine. I leave these people to work their beliefs out all by themselves. It really doesn't matter a damn to me; it's irrelevant. The only way that I could revise my opinion on the matter would involve criterion #1, sitting in the same room and meditating with him. Obviously, that will never happen. So for me his enlightenment or non- enlightenment is a moot point. I will never know for sure, although as far as I can tell, based on my own experience, he is not. That and a buck-fifty will buy me a bad cuppa coffee at Starbucks. But does it *matter* whether he was/is enlightened? No, of course not. I would have learned the same things from him during my time with the TMO whether I believed he was enlightened or not. They would have the same value or non- value whether he was enlightened or not. I'm grateful for the things I learned that I still consider to have value, and I don't cling to the things that I consider not to have value. And that would be the same *EVEN IF* I considered him enlightened. 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/
