--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In almost every case, the claims themselves cannot > possibly be either verified or disproven. So my > personal "litmus test" when dealing with such claims > (*especially* claims of communicating with the dead > teacher) is to watch the *overall* behavior of the > person who is making the claim. Fair enough, thats what everybody should do. You can also see if what he teaches has any positive effect on you. You can also observe, if there is any 'transmission', e.g. when you do puja at initiation. It will never be settled, and there will always be different opinions about it, but in as far as I am concerned, this is the nature of all religious experience. Some may connect to this particular stream of experience, and some won't. > Do they treat the experience they had matter-of-factly, > as if it was no more important than any other experience > they've had in their lives, or do they make it into A > Really Big Thing, one that makes them unique and special? But, matter-of-factly, you can never make such a rule. Some experience simply do have a bigger effect on your life than others. You should know this. So why deny this and pretend it wasn't so? <snip> > But I have seen other folks, in the Rama trip and > others, who *definitely* used their "visions of the > now-dead teacher" to set themselves up as "the new > teacher," and to develop a fanatical following who > hovered around them waiting for the next "message > from the teacher." And often to pay them a great > deal of money for "delivering" these "messages." I know what you mean. This even happens with living teachers, who don't talk a lot, or are fairly inaccessable. There are people who channel e.g. Sai Baba. But these people have never been really close to the teacher, they didn't live with him the everyday life. > It is this last phenomenon I expect to happen a LOT > in the TM movement when Maharishi finally dies. I > expect there to be at least half a dozen folks who > start hearing "messages from Maharishi" and that > mini-cults will develop around each of them. I certainly believe things like this will happen, if they are not already happening now. For me, I am personally not concerned, I am not involved in TM, so why would I care? I know a lot of Gurus, who claim to have been initiated by Babaji. I can only see them and see how I feel in their vicinity. In the case of TM, if lets say, Nandikishore would come forth and say he is in inner contact with Maharishi, I'm more tempted to believe him, than say xyz-'nobody' - even though in both cases I cannot know. As I see it now, the TM as a practise, stands very much on its own feet, it doesn't need the authority of Guru Dev, who is known to the people in the west only through Maharishi. In the case of your ex-Guru Rama, people channeling him were doing so on an established authority within the community, which they were using to give messages. Maharishi OTOH didn't give messages from Guru Dev to people. That's a big difference. He took GD's advice for himself, and simply traces himself to the tradition of his master whom he served for more than 13 years. Can you see the difference at all? 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/
