--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hey Turq, > > I re-read your post about darshon with Gangaji to make sure > I hadn't missed something. I think your view of darshon is > pretty close to how I thought of it when I was involved in TM. > I don't really see what you wrote as a new way of looking at > it. I think many TM people who share the view that you are > awakening to your own nature and the presence of the teacher > is just an exposure to someone who knows themselves in > that way. > > Once you have the assumption in place that you are in the > presence of a person who is using more of their mind then > you are, or in a more awakened state, you have one of the > most powerful influences on suggestibility in place, authority.
With all due respect, I think you've missed the point. "Authority" has nothing whatsoever to do with what I am discussing. What the teacher in question *says* has nothing whatsoever to do with what I am discussing. I am discussing the subjective experience of shifting states of awareness, which can be present whether or not one *knows* that one is in the presence of a teacher, whether or not the teacher speaks a work, and whether or not one expects it. > This effect is well known in therapy where the recognition > of the authority of the therapist is a factor. But you're still talking about WORDS, dude. I'm not. The phenomena I am discussing would happen whether or not the teacher in question remained silent the entire time, and whether or not you acknowledged the person as any kind of "authority." It happens merely as a result of being in close proximity. > In my view it is not just the teacher doing something to > you, like hypnotizing you.. Ericksonian hypnosis invites > you to alter the way you converse with yourself internally. > The client enters into deeper levels of trance through > their own power, not from the hypnotist's power. The > hypnotherapist is a facilitator of the person accessing > their own depth of trance state necessary to accomplish > the goal of the session. What if the "session" has no goal? What if you happened to meet someone in a bar, had a conversation with them, with nothing spiritual ever being discussed, and left, only to find that your state of attention had changed radically and that now you were capable of psychic powers that you weren't before, psychic powers that were never discussed? Where is the "suggestion" in such an interaction? What was the "goal" of such an interaction? What was its "method," if hypnosis was involved? What you saw was what you got -- two guys having tea in a hotel bar, discussing the weather and other such stuff. And yet, the shift of attention took place anyway. > If you had a room full of people who did not have the > intention to play ball you would get superficial results. We must agree to disagree. I have been in the situation I describe above, and many others in which there was no hint of suggestion of any kind. Your model simply does not work for me because it does not cover a great number of the interactions I have had with interesting beings and the effect those interactions had on my state of attention. But mine does. So I'm gonna stick with my "recognition" model, and I wish you well with your "hypnosis" model. > Take a room full of the press in the room with MMY. Bad example. I neither consider Maharishi enlightened nor capable of shifting people's attention. > I don't think any of the skeptics in the room come away > with a profound sense that they were in the room with a > great saint or even a powerful man. I would agree, but this doesn't have anything to do with them being skeptics. Maharishi just isn't that powerful or enlightened, dude. :-) In my opinion and in my sub- jective experience, of course. > But people with a different mindset to have profound > experiences. Indeed, many people "mood make" such experiences with him, but I don't file such experiences in the same category as the phenomenon I am speaking about. I don't feel that Maharishi is capable either of "hypnotising" an audience or of having a profound effect on them *other* than via moodmaking. > Your explanation proposes a mechanics via the concept of > the aura to describe it. That's the idea, yes. > I would view it as a predictable result of the language > pattern used, coupled by the subject's willingness to go > along with the process, and a long habit of accessing > deep trance states. And how do you explain the phenomenon I am speaking about happening to me many times when the teacher in question never said a word? I walked in, sat in a completely quiet room with someone I'd never met before for a couple of hours, and walked out in a radically different state of attention. I did not *expect* this to happen; in fact I was expecting *nothing* to happen. But it did. My theory covers such an eventuality, whereas I don't think yours does. > I don't mean this to minimize the experience as "just > a trance". Yes you do, but that's Ok. :-) > I am just using the language of one system in the context > of the other. > Switching sides I might phrase it that in the presence of > MMY, a person becomes aware of their own inner unbounded > Self and finds it easy to access their own pure consciousness > and their true nature. I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation about this because I *never* have experienced the phenomenon I am speaking about with Maharishi. And you don't seem to have ever interacted with the type of folks I am speaking about. So we're pretty much stuck talking apples and oranges. I can see you making a case for hypnosis in situations where either the teacher actually says something, or in which the student has been set up to expect something, and thus mood-makes it into existence. But neither of those criteria were present in many of the interactions I've had in my life in which my state of attention shifted through nothing more than proximity to an interesting person. > But in the system of hypnosis the assumptions contained in > that phrase are dropped. Whatever. As I've said, what I am talking about never happened to me with Maharishi, so I am not in any position to comment on whether it ever could. I seriously doubt that it could, but I'll never again be in a room with him and neither will anyone here, so it's impossible to say for sure. > I think that both the traditional view of what is going on, > and the information from hypnotherapists is useful in > understanding such phenomenon. Whatever floats your boat. I'm not trying to sell you my theory, merely to present it as an option, one that explains more things than your theory does, or that the "darshan"/"the teacher 'does' something" theory does. It's purely informational, and if it doesn't strike a resonance with you, useless to you. > There too worlds have been held apart by suspicions on > both sides of the fence. It is also a result of people > having superficial experiences with meditation or the > deeper states of hypnosis. But when you have deep > experiences of both, the overlap becomes much more > obvious. If you're looking for it. :-) > These are unusual (for most people) mental states when > they are experienced profoundly, and I think there is a > lot to be learned by combining data. The fact that the > formal language structure used in hypnosis, is also used > by many spiritual teachers has important implications. Perhaps. But please bear in mind that the phenomenon I am discussing can take place without a word being spoken, and without the person whose state of attention shifts even being aware that the person they are sitting with is a teacher of any kind. I've seen this happen in airports, with someone who just happened to sit in a seat in the waiting room next to such an individual. Are you suggesting that the teacher in this case some- how hypnotised the commuter sitting next to him without saying a word or even looking at him, enough to cause a shift of attention so profound that the commuter started talking about it with his wife? Basically, I don't think there's much more to be discussed between the two of us on this. I don't personally believe that the "hypnosis" model of shifting states of attention covers all the bases I have seen and experienced in my life, whereas the "recognition" model does. But I'm not selling it; I just mentioned it to the Gangaji guy because I thought it might help him find a way of dealing with his experience with her that doesn't give *her* all the power in the situation. That, unfortunately, is what your "hypnosis" model does. Whether the teacher is blasting you with woo- woo rays (the "darshan" theory), or lulling you into a shifted state of attention via speech phrasing (the "hypnosis" theory), you're still casting yourself as the "victim" of someone *doing* something to you. I like my "recognition" theory because it doesn't involve the teacher doing diddleysquat, yet one's state of attention shifts *anyway*. Different strokes for different folks, that's all... 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